Environmental Impact Analysis: Philosophy and Methods. INSTITUTION Wisconsin Univ., Madison

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 070 640 SE 015 317

AUTHOR Ditton, Robert B.; Goodale, Thomas L. TITLE Environmental Impact Analysis: Philosophy and Methods. INSTITUTION Wisconsin Univ., Madison. Sea Grant Program. REPORT NO WIS-SG-72-111 PUB DATE 72 NOTE 165p.; Proceedings of the Conference on Environmental Impact Analysis, Green Bay, Wisconsin, January 4-5, 1972 AVAILABLE FROM Sea Grant Publications Office, 1225 West Dayton Street, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 51706

EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$6.58 DESCRIPTORS *Comparative Analysis; *Conference Reports; *Environmental Criteria; Environmental Influences; Evaluation; *Federal Legislation; Methods; *Quality Control; Standards

ABSTRACT Proceedings of the Conference on Environmental Impact Analysis held in Green Bay, Wisconsin, January 4-5,1972, are compiled in this report. The conference served as a forum for exchange of information among State and Federal agencies and educators on experiences with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970. Hopefully, results of the conference will be manifested in improved conception and analysis of public works projects. The 16 major presentations dealt with several areas of concern: impact of the National Environmental Policy Act; how the Act has been implementedandsome of the problems arising from it in the past two years; environmental impact perspectives exemplified by a systems approach to governmental decision-making and the total institution-wide emphasis on man and his environment by the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay; impact assessment dimensions as conceptualization, communication, social aspects, and the application ofmathematics; and procedures and programs for environmental impact assessment. Text of the Act appears in the appendix together with various aspects of impact statements--preparation process, sources for, summary of those already filed, and Federal agency contactE. (BL) ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ANALYSIS: PH I LOSOPHY &METHODS

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Sea Grant publication WIS-SG-72.111 cz) ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ANALYSIS: cp PHILOSOPHY & METHODS C

Edited by Robert B. Ditton and Thomas L. Goodale

Proceedings of the Conference on Environmental Impact Analysis Green Bay, Wisconsin January 4-5,1972

SPONSORED BY UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SEA GRANT PROGRAM UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-EXTENSION UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-GREEN BAY Published by University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Program, part of the National Sea Grant Program, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminiorat ion US. Department of Commerce

Sea Grant Publications Office 1225 West Dayton Street University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin 53706 (608) 263.3255 FOREWORD

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 has among its purposes:

"To declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent and eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and national resources importance to the

nation; . . ."

Since this Act initiates substantial changes in our Nation's environmental goals, its implementations have created numerous certainties and problems.The conference served as a forum for exchange of information among State and Federal agencies and educators on experiences with the Environmental Policy Act. The results of the conference will be manifest in improved conception and analysis of public works penjects.

This conference was supported by University of Wisconsin-Extension, UW-Green Bay. and the UW-Sea Grant Program. The University of Wisconsin's Sea Grant Program is a part of the National Sea Grant Program, which is maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U. S. Department of Commerce.

Professors Robert B. Ditton and Thomas L. Goodale of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay have performed an important service in organizing a timely effort to discuss an important national goal in the formative stages of its implementation.

MARVIN T. BEATTY Chairman Environmental Resources Unit University of Wisconsin-Extension

GREGORY D. REDDEN Director of University Extension Sea Grant Program

ROLLIN B. POSEY Dean School of Professional Studies University of Wisconsin-Green Bay ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It's a bit presumptuous to list ourselves as editors of this report. We do that only to establish accountability for whatever errors and inconveniences encountered by the agencies and individuals who participated in this undertaking. Whatever credit is due must be attributed to the conference participants. We have listed them in the Appendix.

The papers included here are much as they were when presented at the conference. Revisions, if any, were mincr. Most of the discussion that took place was intentionally not recorded.We chose not to include in the report the portions that were recorded. The print media seems Coo cool to capture the tone, or even the essence, of the discussion. Extensive editing seems to warp the context, and suggests formality neither obtained nor desired.

We wish to acknowledge the contributions of many others who made the conference and this report possible. They are: Mary Beatty, Ione Brown, and Ernest Ehrbar, all of University Extension and to Greg Hedden, Director of Advisory Services, University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Program, for their active support of the entire program; Mrs. Evelyn Farrell for handling many of the conference details including conference registration; Mesdames Jean Brien, Joy Phillips and Hope Mercier, our secretaries, for translating unintelligible and badly-rushed notes and requests into whatever orderliness was obtained. Mrs. Phillips typed the final copy of the entire report. Linda Weimer of the Sea Grant Program pushed the report through production in record time.

The conference and report belong to these people and to those who participated in the proceedings.We hope not to have done too much violence to their talents and goodwill since they are so important to our environment.

R.B.D. T.L.G. TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Page THE IMPACT OF THE NATIO;;AL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT

Chapter

1. NEPA: BUCKLE DOWN OR BUCKLE UNDER? Thomas L. Goodale 1

2. THE MAKING OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: THE FIRST TWO YEARS John Stetnhart 5

3. CEQ AND ITS ROLF IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY Thomas C. Winter 23

4. SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF SEE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT PROGRAM Neil Orloff 29

TWO YEARS OF LABOR AND LEARNING

5. THE FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION John J. Kessler 45

6. THE U. S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS Donald E. Lawyer 53

OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT PERSPECTIVES

7. UWGB: ITS ENVIPJNMENTAL FOCUS AND IMPACT Edward Weidner 61

8. A SYSTEMS APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT John Armstrong 65

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7 Chapter Page

SOME IMPACT ASSESSMENT DIMENSIONS

9. CONCEPTUALIZING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT Paul Sager 79

10. COMUNICATING IN IMPACT ANALYSIS Robert S. Cook 83

11. SOCIAL ASPECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT Per K. Johnson 87

12. SOME THOUGHTS ON IMPACT STATEMENTS AND MATHEMATICS Eugene Robkin 91

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT

13. SOME PROCEDURES AND PROGRAMS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESS1ENT Jens C. Sorenson 97

14. EVALUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT THROUGH A COMPUTER MODELLING PROCESS Thomas M. Krauskopf Dennis C. Bunde 107

15. THE QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT David Jowett 127

CONCLUDING REMARKS

16. NEPA: BUCKLING DOWN Robert B. Ditton 139

APPENDICES

A. PL 91-190. National Environmental Policy Act . . 145

B. "20 Questions and Answers Explaining the NEPA Section 102 Environmental Impact Stet/a:lent Process" 153

C. Sources for Environmental Impact Statements . . . 158 viii

8 Page

D. Source for Back Issues of the 102 Monitor . . . . 159

E. Summary of 102 Statements Filed with the CEQ through 11/30/71 160

F. Environmental Impact Statements: Federal Agency Contacts 163

G. Selected References 165

H. Conference Participants 167

ix The Impact of the National Environmental Policy Act 1

NEPA: BUCKLE DOWN OR BUCKLE UNDER?

Thomas L. Coodale Associate Professor University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Dr. S. Dillon Ripley of the Smithsonian Institution, in opening his testimony to the Senate's Interior and Insular Affairs Committee said:

"Mr. Chairman, I'm greatly honored to be here and to be able to open my mouth in this fascinating colloquium on the environment, and assumedly environmental qual.ity, and I think that the joint committee shows prescient intuition in having these hearings in k- voom which is singly devoid of environment and which resembl,..s to me an Egyptian sarcophagus."

Without being at all apologetic about our conference arrangements, the comment has rather wide-ranging applicability. Dr. Ripley is commenting on our insensitivity to our daily environment and our tolerance of environmental insults unthinkingly imposed on one another.We have, by his criteria, a long, long way to go if environmental quality is to be more than verbiage.

Concern for environmental quality is at least as old as Christianity. Concerns expressed in the Bible have been expressed almost continually for hundreds of ycars. Unfortunately, however, the expressions have seldom been more than verbal. The spirit of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 is to translate those concerns into something more tangible than assurances that everything's fine. Clearly, everything is not fine; a realization that we have come upon late, but surely not too late. Until recent times, the costs of environmental misuse grew very gradually, but wcre accumulative. Until recently, it seemed possible to defer pay...ent. Until recently, the right to damage and degrade the environment was widely accepted and thus widely practiced. But the hour when lavish coaches turn to pumpkins comas to everyone.

Fittingly, PresidLnt Nixon made signing NEPA his first official act of this decade.The act is something of a legislative landmark, but Ilh. all such landmarks, it is also something of an indictment. It is an indictment of our inability to change our ways of thinking and acting in a world confronted with drastic change in every other respect. We have been, and to a disheartening degree continue to be, as economist ti John Galbraith put it:

. . . guided la part by ideas that are relevant to another world, and as a result we do many things that are unnecessary, some that are unwise, and a few that are insane." 1

11 2

We have been guided, for example, by the Judeo-Christian concept of man as a very special act of creation; as a creature outside of and superior to nature; as the master and subdoer of the earth. So the emphasis has been and continues to be on mastery, not upon harmony though these approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

We have been guidt3 by the I.onomic dogma that the common good emerges from the competitive struggle of private interests. The public interest has been neither expressed nor clarified and agreed upon. Consequently, the nation's wealth, which is to say its human and natural resources, has Leen converted into money at a time when environmental conditions may become so degraded as to render wealth meaningless and which no amount of money can cure.

We have been guided by the belief that our democracy is the best form of government ever devised; a belief that is true, but also self- defe,.ting when citizens become so satisfied in the faith that they ignore the practice. (Religious, as well as government institutions, have this inherent problem.) Democracy presupposes a citizenry which is informed and involved. That is starting to happen, although not always in that order.

We have been guided by a time perspective so narrow andso present oriented that nearly every individual and agency is ona go now, pay later basis. Our environmental debt is enormous and payments are fall- ing due. And if population experts have taught us anything, they have taught us to think future, and practice a little self-restraint in the present.

We have been guided by unreserved faith that all questionsare answerable; all problems solvable; all tasks completable ifwe can only break than down into their most minute parts. But our analysis has not been accompanied by synthesis; the parts are not made whole again, and in fact the whole has become both greater thus anddifferent from the sum of its parts.

These ideas, and the habits and acts based on them have been challenged by events over the last decade or two. Time has a way of turning virtues into vices and our few decadesappears to be a time of such transitions.

The National Environmental Policy Act, in itsway, challenges these ideas which have guided us for the last few centuries. It asks that we relate harmoniously to our natural environment; it askshow human and natural resources will be influenced byour acts; it asks that the citizenry be more effectively informed andinvolved in the affairs of government; it asks for thinking wellinto the future; it asks that our specialized knowledges be broughttogether into a meaningful whole. That is the revolution about which Mr.Train and count- less others speak.

We are not very well prepared, for all this. But that is what this conference is about and why all of us are here.During these two Jays we will learn more about the National EnvironmentalPolicy Act, its

12 Implementation, what two years of experience has taught us, some of the problems encountered, and how to better measure and understand the impact of our activities on the environment, and ultimately on ourselves.

Environmental impact analysis is, to date, an inexact process based in ecology, to date, an inexact science. Cybernetics, systems analysis, telemetry, photogrametry, electronic and satellite surveillance, remote sensing and other promising tools may make it the most exact of sciences. All of which will still not assure environmental quality. It will only give us better data to aid in decisions.We will still have to decide what it is we want, and what we are willing to give up or tolerate to have it.

In the final synthesis, if it is ethical to value one's chances for survival, to respect the value others place on their lives, to want the best for one's self without prejudicing the opportunities of others, and to hope for a decent life for one's descendents and long durati-in for the species, then the foundation of environmental policy is ethics.These two days will be devoted to demonstrating the wisdom of new environmental ethics and policies. We will demonstrate it first to ourselves, if necessary- -and then, hopefully, to everyone else.

1John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957, p. 3.

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THE MAKING OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY:THE FIRST TWO YEARS

Johr Steinhart Associate Director Marine Studies Center University of Wisconsin-Madison

I am going to try and take a somewhat larger view than those of you who have been working directly with Enviro:mental Impact Statements. That's easy for me because I don't work directly with them and haven't had the pains and difficulties that we've heard about this morning. I want to try and look at how we got this part:,ular piece of legislation and some of the surrounding legislation. I've included a timetable of the legislation at the end of this paper. We tend to think the Federal government doesn't work very fast. That's true in a number of contexts, but in this particular case a lot happened very fast.

John Maynard Keynes said one time that the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Then he goes on to say that practical men who envision themselves as concerned only with the daily affairs of everyday life are in fact captives of some academic scribbler, usually of a good long time ago. Right now, those who believe in free enterprise and the commonly held notions of American business are captives of the ideas of Adam Smith and Ricardo. Keynes goes on to say that even madmen who imagine themselves subject to voices they hear in the air or visions they have in the night are in fact mostly subscribing to some academic scribbler.

We had, in the decade of the 1960's, the beginnings of an enormous amount of conservation-environment legislation.What's more, we had a collection of writings that came to some considerable prominence. The first, and by all odds the most famous was Rachel Carson with her book Silent Spring, hotly debated even to this day in certain parts of the academic community. These ideas and this legislation had much the same effect as the civil rights experience had perhaps five years earlier. That is to say, the expectations and the interest rose enormously. This is a prescription for political popularity, as it always has been in this country. Stewart Udall pronounced the 1960's as the greatest decade for environmental legislation since 1910. Now, since he played the role he did, that may be a bit overstated, but I don't think much. We added more park lands, for instance, in the U.S. in the decade of the 1960's than we had in the previous 30 years.

We had other things happen, of course, in the middle of the 1960's. One was the Civil Rights Movement and the events which culminated in the legislation of '63, '64, and '65. Events, then,beganto turn in strange ways, ways that I think the people engaged in civil rights

14 6 activity had not anticipated. The tise of Black Power, for instance, and the alienation of leaders, both political and intellectual, from the Civil Rights Movement was not expected. Student activism, whatever its origins, certainly dislocated the academic community far more than it had been dislocated any time since World War II. This meant that new ideas were at least under active discussion. I have to say, in all honesty, that the changes have not been as dramatic as some people might have hoped. CW-Green Bay is perhaps one. of the most vigorous experi- ments undertaken in academia and they're few end far between believe me. The Vietnamese war at this time escalated interest in our domestic policies because it was one of the first real times that we have experienced the practical application of the foreign policy we have been embracing since World War II. Intervening in the affairs of other nations, whether we were right or wrong, produced results different than we had hoped, and exporting our ideas worldwide was not something that was welcome on the other end. Out of this came the general concern about the environment. It rose quickly as a national issue among the sort of ordinary people who thought not much about it, didn't read Rachel Carson, or for that matter, much of anything in the way of books, so let me pick it up at the beginning of the Nixon Administration.

Remember there are two struggles going on here in the Federal Government, that have been going on for at least the past 20 years.

The first of these is the struggle between the executive branch and the congressional branch. There's a substantial body of analysis purporting to explain what all that's about and how it came to pass, and who ought to win, or who is winning, or whatever. I don't propose to try to go into that at the moment, except to point out that every time new issues arise, one of the things that happens is the scramble for who is going to determine the direction the country will take, or the Federal Government will take. This struggle has been most prominent between the congress and the executive branch. It matters not whether they're the same party, as we know the same party is somewhat of an illusion.Mr. Nixon finds himself challenged from both right and left within the Republican Party and Lyndon Johnson certainly found himself challenged from both sides in the Democratic Party.

The second of these struggles is an invisible one, but one that goes on none the less. This is a struggle between a technocratic government and a democratic government, a struggle over whether or not the populace will participate in the choice and resolution of issues. There is a substantial push, and has been for many years, in the direction of making sure we have the appropriate experts advising on the technical issues of the day. Since almost all issues have important technical aspects associated with them, the result of this is an increasing isolation of the electorate from the process by which decisions are made. So that, for example, one sees, in the federal domain, the rise of the horizontal coordinating bodies that have no power--the regional commissions, the River Basic commissions, the shotgun weddings of local governmental units in an effort to get them to cooperate. Such commissions, although they are populated for the most part by well- intentioned men and, occasionally, by able men, are so remote from the electorate that the only boss to be satisfied is Washington or the State

15 Capital, as the case may be. For instance, the regional development commissions are charged with a particular kind of development and they have no official power, all they have is a carrot and a stick. The carrot is that if you do what we say you should no we will give you a grant. If you don't do what we say you should do we will pass some regulations. This struggle is becoming quite clear over environmental issues.

Once the environrental issue began to be prominent, the struggle began fairly quickly. The Nixon Administration, with the exception of Secretary Hickle, was inaugurated on January 20, 1969. On the 28th of January the Santa Barbara oil spill happened, easily one of the best publicized environmental affairs of the past several years.That plunged the administration much more immediately into environmental matters tha:% they probably had anticipated. This is not to say it had not already become an issue, it certainly had.Russell Train, you may remember. the present head of The Council of Environmental Quality, headed a task force that met to make policy recommendations before the Nixon Administration came into office. There were a number of these task forces but the environment one headed by Russell Train came out with a ,00d deal of strong language about the issues of survival, etc. It sounded like a distillation of the writings about the environment that had begun to become so prominent. The struggle between the executive branea and congress began promptly.It began first in the congress with the struggle among congressional committees for who was going to introduce legislation on this subject. In the Senate the most active members were Senator Nelson from Wisconsin, Senator Muskie on water pollution issues, and Senator Jackson on conservation matters.As you know, Congress operates strongly on the committee system, which determines whether legislation even gets considered, and, often, what gets passed. For example, two principal bills were introduced in this early period and there were a great many other bills. I counted 40 odd in the Senate at one point. There was Senator Jackson's bill that eventually became the National Environmental Policy Act; and Senator Muskie's bill, which in its original form was not too different from Jackson's bill, which eventually became the Environmental Policy Improvement Act of 1970 and set up the office of Environmental Quality.

In the House, affairs were, as they often are, still more like the Balkans, with committees upon committees all struggled for jurisdiction. One of the most active committees of the latter part of the Johnson Administration was the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. Edward Garmatz was chairman. It was Congressman Dingell, head of the subcommittee on Fish and Wildlife Conservation that introduced essentially the Jackson bill, (with Jackson's blessing as near as one can tell) as an Amendment to the 1946 Fish and Wildlife Act. That act has little to do with the subject matter of the National Environmental Policy Act, but was a device to make sure that it would be assigned to Dingell's subcommittee for hearings. It was so assigned and Congressman Aspinall's (chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee) nose was out of joint. Congressman Aspinall has hardly had a reputation as a conserva- tionist. He comes from that school of thought in the West that says "If its there, we ought to exploit it, whateverit is." I think his constituents largely feel that way.There is much made of the frontier

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mentality. It exists and in some very clear-cut ways in large parts of the country. They see an opportunity for additional income in an area that is not very well endowed with opportunities to make additional income.

Congressman Reuss from Wisconsin has long been an activist in environmental affairs.Long being about five years for a congressman. Much pushing and shoving followed an extraneous event, the death of Congressman Dawson from Illinois which vacated the chairmanship of the Committee on Goverr.ient Operations. This committee is the spearhead of the war with the executive branch, since among their charges is the authority to investigate everything that the executive branch does when they wish to do so. In the shuffle over who was going to take over that committee and how it was going to be reorganized, Congressman Reuss, being a relatively senior member of that committee, got a new subcommittee set up, a subcommittee on Conservation and Natural Resources, and got himself a charge in which it looks like they have jurisdiction over all environmental matters in the Congress.The last act of that battle hasn't been played yet. Congressman Aspinall nas been around a long time and knows where the levers of power are and the skeletons are buried and is not going to give up his jurisdiction over environmental and conservation legislation easily.Whether or not Congressman Dingell is out of the picture is another matter because the precedent has been established, and precedent is equally important in our seniority and precedent governed Congress.

This is the kind of battle that goes on. Other matters which are peripheral to it frequently play a large role, so for example, Congress- man Holifield, long the champion of atomic energy and chairman of the joint committee on atomic energy, bowed out of his position and took over Dawson's chairmanship on the Committee of Government Operations. Part of the reason for this was that he felt the executive branch was about to divide the Atomic Energy Commission into the Department of Natural Resources, and put the weapons programs into the Department of Defense. These changes sound to me like basically sensible ideas but clearly do not sound sensible to Congressman Holifield. Those things could be accomplished by an executive reorganization plan and it is the committee on Government Operations that says yeah or nay on reorganization. The actual reorganization that was made had to accept the political realities. If certain kinds of reorganizations which were recommended were made, they would have come afoul of Congressman Holifield's pet projects.

The bills were introduced, but the first licks were got in by the President. On March 29th, Executive Order No. 11472 set up the Environ- mental Quality Council, properly called at that time, the President's Environmental Quality Council, consisting of the President as chairman, the Vice-President as vice-chairman and I believe six of the cabinet members who were most concerned in environmental matters. This was a way of attempting to co-opt the leadership directly to the President. It didn't work. Jackson and Muskie were not enthusiastic about it and anyhow they were of the opposite political party so there wasn't even a necessity for a show of unity. It was clear as soon as it was done that that wasn't going to deflect the Congress. It meant that there was a 9 certain amount of difficulty for people like Dr. DuBridge, the President's Science Advisor, trying to advise both sides to make sure that if we got a bill, it made some kind of sense and if we didn't get a bill, they must support the direction the President was going.That's a difficult game to play, because you can often get caught off base and then you wind up out of a job. Some people did wind up out of jobs.

The Jackson-Muskie fight was finally resolved with a truce negotiated as usual by the Committee staffs. Muskie's Water Pollution jurisdiction was not to be meddled with and his bill was to be allowed to go through and Jackson's bill was allowed to go on through, but the duplicated portions of the bills were eradicated by this truce.Muskie had really wanted a major office of environment quality on the model of the Office of Manage- ment and Budget. Jackson wanted something like the Council of Economic Advisors. It wound up by having a little of both, the Council of Environ- mental Quality, which we will come across in just a couple of minutes, and the Office of Environmental Quality which provides a supporting staff for the Council for Environmental Quality. It became a race then to see which bill would get passed first and here I think high marks for knowledge of Congressional machinery would have to go to Jackson. He managed to get his bill out and passed beforeMuskie was able to, so that the National Environmertal Policy Act is essentially the Jackson Act.

Well, what does it say, and I'd like to take another look at it. We've heard about Section 102 so much that it's a little hard to realize there are other parts to this bill than Section 102. It's easy to recall Section 1(2 because for a great many of you in this room, it makes you do soemthing.The parts that don't immediately make you do anythingare easier to overlook at the outset. It's a very strange bill in that the language in it is stronger than almost any bill that breaks new policy ground. It's easy to write a strong bill on a criminal matter for instance; much less easy when you are entering into a whole new policy area. The first section of the bill establishes a national policy. It claims to anyhow. It promotes anti-pollution efforts which would include Section 102 and it establishes the Council on Environmental Quality.

The first part, the national policy part, the basis and intent of the bill, contains some of this very strong language. For instance, it talks about problems such as population growth, urbanization, resource exploitation, and technological advance. First zime in any legislation that I know of that technology is not looked upon as motherhood used to be before population concerns. Noting the critical importance of "restoring and maintaining environmental quality," the restoring part of it is a little unusual as language. It talks about using "all practicable means;" it talks about "preserving diversity and variety in individual choice;" it talks about the "balance between population and resource use;" it talks about "maximum retainable recycling;" it talks about the principle that each person should enjoy a healthful environment.All of these are essentially new kinds of policies and it remains to be seen what precisely will come out of all of this with some experience in both direct operation of the act and its litigation in court.There is only one loophole that I can see in that entire basis and intent section, and that is a phrase which reads "consistent with other essential considerations of national policy." That sounds like an escape clause for

18 10 the Department of Defense for one, although I am sure that others may try and operate with it too, and it remains to be seen what will be interpreted as essential considerations of national policy. It's already clear in a practical sense what that means. It means, for instance, that when the economy turns down a little bit, the environment goes into second place and we go about trying to get the economy and employment back where it was before we do anything more about the environment. Whatever one thinks about it, that's not a new happening. That's been pretty much the case all along, whether it was withsome other kind of social improvement legislation or something else.

Section 102 has been talked about. I would just like to make one or two comments about it, particularly things which have not yet, in my opinion, received the attention, particularly from the courts, that they are likely to receive eventually. You all know that it's strong in the sense that it takes the unusual position that the policies regula- ting public laws of the United States shall be interpreted and adminis- terei in accordance with the policies set forth in this act. That is stronger language than usual, and it says that all agencies of the Federal Government shall develop methods and procedures to comply with subsection (C) w4ich has the specific requirement for the impact statement. One part of the impact statement which has not yet received the attention that I suspect it will, talks about the relationship between local short-term uses and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity. This is a very difficult issue that frequently arises over such matters as highway location and so on and I think we'll probably see more on that. Still more curious is the requirement in (C) (iii) for alternatives for proposed action.No one is clear vet what that means. In the case of highway offerings for instance, it appears that many highway planners conclude that one should offer an alternative in the location of highways.You know, do you want it here or there? That clearly doesn't exhaust the possibility for alternatives. The question is transportation and not the building of highways. Whether or not this section can be interpreted to require the consideration of alternatives more broadly than the specific operations and the specific jurisdiction of the agency in question is a matter which I am sure will come to court soon. There are a few comments in Judge Wright's decision in the Calvert Cliffs case that suggest that his interpretation may require much broader consideration of alternatives. If it does, the agencies, and all of you, will be in a still more difficult position. How, for instance, is the Atomic Energy Commission going to give adequate consideration to the alternative of solar energy generation, if they haven't been working on it because no one told them to.

It's my guess that unless something dramatic happens, thatsection if the Act is likely to be interpreted as asking for real alternatives. That's going to put the government in a very difficult position, and the people in operating agencies in an especially difficult position. The alternative, for instance, to the Corps of Engineers Erosion Control Programs might be to let it happen. Well, now that's a real alternative. The Corps of Engineers can't exactly do that at present.

Another item in this bill which seems to ale to be extraordinarily strong, is the requirement for intergovernmental cooperation. They don't 19 Il

suggest consulting with other agencies. It's a specific requirement and the responses of the agencies, if any, are to be added to the dossier on the particular project in question and made available to the public. That's normally not been the case. It is true under the Moss Freedom of Information Act that any official document presumably is available. Ralph Nader has made quite a career out of trying to route these documents out of their relevant agencies. But there are many ways that can be prevented from happening. The Office of Science and Technology, for instance, in many of its internal papers as a matter of course stamps them "Rough Draft, Not For Official Use." That doesn't classify them. That just means that if somebody comes looking for a document, there isn't any such document, because it has never been ac'.ed on, never been anything other than a rough draft. I don't know whether this is encouraging or discouraging about our Federal Government, but it's the way it has operated within my memory.

The Act continues strongly. Let me just read subsection (D). "Study, develop and describe--Study, develop and describe--appropriate alternatives for recommended courses of action in any proposal which involves unresolved conflicts concerning alternative uses of available resources." What's an unresolved conflict? All we have to do is file a lawsuit and there is an unresolved conflict, so that almost any project that anyone has any interest in whatever can be turned into an unresolved conflict. What does it mean to develop alternatives? Well I don't know but that's a very curious part of the language.

The last strong part of it hasn't received much attention yet this morning -- Section 103 of the Act which calls for the present policy reviews. It effectively says, This Act, and now I'm interpreting very liberally; This Act supercedes all other Acts and Administrative Procedures except where there is specific legislative language to the contrary. What the Act says is that all other activities will be brought into accord with the provisions of this Act. It requires that an Agency review administrative regulations, current policies, statutory authority, and so on, and recommend to the President such measures as may be necessary to bring their authorities and policies into conformity with the intents, purposes and procedures set forth in this Act. That's a rare item in legislation in which they simply say, straighten out everything so it's in agreement with this one. If, in fact, you tried to do that--tried to make present jurisdictional matters entirely consistent from agency to agency--the government would never accomplish anything.

The Act also set up the Council for Environmental Quality. Briefly what is that? It is similar to the Council on Economic Advisors in its structure; a three-man council. The chairman is level two executive appointee. That's important in terms of the act. It gives some idea of the importance attached to this position. That is a position that is equivalent in stature to the President's Science Advisor, and to the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. It's the sane level as the Undersecretary of a department.That's about the level of importance that's attached to it. The other two are level four executives.

Their duties were to advise the President, and to review agency work. They can do advising alright, that's the whole nature of the Executive Office of the President, lots of advice. The President needs it. he's got lots of problems. Review agency work--that's a good dealmore difficult, but it can be done from the Executive Office ofthe President. The Council of Economic Advisors and the Office ofScience and Technology and a few others of the Executive Office of the Presidentagencies have sometimes been effective in reviewing agency policies. The third thing the Council on Environmental Quality is to do isto conduct investigations. That it cannot do and probably shouldnot du in the Executive office of the President. Congress seems to be a little dim on the operation of the executive branch sometimes andnot very clear en how it actually works. That duty was later assigned by an executivereorgani- zation plan to Environmental Protection Agency, andwe will get to that in just a couple minutes. They are to report to the President and the agencies are directed to help. An annual report is required of the President with the help of the Councilon Environmental Quality on tilt . state of the environment. That annual report, by the way, seems to have appealed to Jackson and his supporters interms similar to the impact that the annual report of the Council of EconomicAdvisors has had in the past ten or twenty years. Whether it will hove the same impactis not quite so clear because the state of theeconomy has turned cut to be considerably more important politically thanthe state of the environment. We'll see whether that changes but rightat the moment,I would guess not, because when people are out of work, theyseer willing to scrap the environment.The Council on Environmental Quality is required to consult with the Citizens Committee en the Environment. Executive Order No. 11472, earl in 1969, changed what had beenthe Citizens Committee on Recreation and Natural Beauty,headed by Lawrence Rockefeller and consisting of the usual collection of mostlywealthy and well-meaning, public-spirited people, to the Citizens AdvisoryCommittee on Environmental Policies. Such committees have marginal utility inmy opinion. It may be a useful device to communicate back and forthbetween some important and wealtny leaders of society, but on the wholethey are pretty much useless as far as doing anything is concerned.

The Act also contains money, and money is where itsat in the Federal Government. It contained authorizations for $300,000 for thefirst year, $700,000 for the second year and $1,000,000 thereafter. That's maximum authorization for budget. The Appropriations Committee invariab y appro- priates less than the authorization. $300,000 is just not very much money. You take three executive level employees and equipthem with a couple of secretaries and one guy who isn'ttoo proud to actually do some work and you've used up your $300,000.The salary of an executive level two is about $48,000 and executives of level fourget aLout $42,000 annually. Add a secretary or two, an administrative officer andmaybe a staff director though there isn't any staff and you've had it. The money's gone. The point I'm trying to make here is that this billdid not equip the Council of Environmental Quality to doany more than exist. They could no more discharge the duties entailed inthe Act than they could have flown to the moon. It depended upon the Huskie Bill getting passed later.

The present makeup and still the originalappointees are known to most of you. Russell Train, long head of the ConservationFoundation and Undersecretary of Interior in the newadministration when it was 13 first formed, was named chairman.He's too nice a guy for most government jobs. He tends to be rather gentlemanly in an administration not noted for gentlemanly conduct. In the Department of the Interior for instance, and I don't mean this as any particular disrespect to Russell Train who is a man I admire very much--he just couldn't play the game with Walter Hickle shove him and Carl "Cleanwater" Klein elow him. They play mean and they play dirty if they think they are headed in the right direction. The other two members are Bob Kahn, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer of the Christian Science Monitor, and Cordon McDonald who is a rather interesting fellow. He had been vice-president of the Institute of Defense Analysis up until two years ago. He's very clearly one of the younger members of the what has come to be called, in the scientific establishment, the cold-warrior crowd, very much addicted to the rather arrogant notion that many physical scientists have; that with a little common sense they cculd solve all the problems and then get back to solving the physics of the world. I think that's a mistake in makeup. In my opinion there should either be all scientists or no scientists on the Council of Environmental Quality.They have a problem in that McDonald is in a position to be the expert among the fishwives with technical matters that are under discussion. That's a dangerous position to have anyone in, no matter how well intentioned he is.What is probably more disturbing is that on the Council of Environmental Quality, or even among the staff leaders, we have not found the men who have been actively working on environmental problems for the last ten or twenty or thirty years. They are for most part recent converts. They announced their faith in the environment quite recently and then became experts. I am one of those in case any one is in doubt and I'm fairly clear on how limited your perspective can be if you arrive via that route.

Let's just go on through this timetable for a moment or two. The President tried to establish his primacy in this area with his Executive Order No. 11472, setting up the President's Environmental Quality Council. On July 10th, the House killed it. The money to support that council was in the Interior Appropriations Bill last year and they knocked it out. That was the kiss of the death for the President's Council as a principle coordinating mechanism. I think it's probably correct that the President Jid not retain authority in that presidential body.The reason is that no council or committee headed by the President can comment on anything. The President after all, as Harry Truman once remarked, is "The place where the buck stops." The President cannot comment and say what we ought to do because if we ought to do it, then, why doesn't he de it.That's the point. The Council on Environmental Quality, even though they are located in the Executive Office of the President, may make a great many comments because they are not the President. So that early committee appeared to the public as though they were not considering the important issues. I sat in on a number of their early meetings.They were considering the important issues, but if they weren't prepared to act, they had to keep still, and that's the difficulty with that kind of arrangement.

Things went right on. July 18th the President sent a special message to the Congress on the population problem. Unprecedented! Really. Eisenhower had just barely summoned up the guts to mention it one time and here's a whole message on it as a problem.August 22nd was a sort of 42 14

major step. For the first time the Department of the Interior, largely at Walter Hickle's instigation, really put the clamps on drilling regulations and control of off-shore drilling regulations in opposition to the oil industry i:. part. That is to say, the oil industry had a good healthy input into it, and probably more influence thansome people would like, but for the first time in my memory, the executive branchof government went against the oil lobby and don't think the President didn't hear about it, too.That's the most powerful lobby in Washington.

In September, the Congress set up the Environmental PolicyDivision of the Legislative Reference Bureau. The only real source of expertise in Congress for routine matters under discussion, unless theywant to put a man personally on their staff as technical expert, is the Legislative Reference Bureau of the Library of Congress. They set up their own Environmental Policy Division with Dr. Richard Carpenteras head. That represented a big step with them.

November 4th, the General Accounting Office reportedon Water Pollution, a report that had been underway for overa year, and it was highly critical. The General Accounting Office has maintainedan enviable reputation, I think, as a relatively unbiasedobserver of what's going on within the government, particularly in the executivebranch, since they are a creature of the Congres. It was highly critical of water pollution efforts and programs administered by the Federal Government. Partly in response to that report, we had a number of curiousaffairs. I happened to have picked out only two. On November 25th, just a couple weeks after that, the Congress went against the President'sbudget, and increased Air Pollution Research by a factor of three. I think the budget called for 12 million and they put up 47 million. On December 4th, they even went more dramatically at it. Of a total one billion authorization for a whole variety of water programs, the administrationhad asked for $216,000,000, the Senate gave them the whole billiondollars, and the House gave them $600,000,000. Both houses were way above the requested budgetary figures and it was settled in committeeat $800,000,000 so the administration got three times what it had asked for, forwater pollution. This was again part of this war between Congressand the executive branch as to who is going to decide what the programs and the extent of those programs are.

On January 1st, the National Environmental PolicyAct of 1970 was signed into law. January 22nd, the State of the Union message was delivered in which the President talked about "the most comprehensive and costly program in history," and offered up 10 billiondollars worth of environmental programs.Ten billion, that's large even by Defense Department standards. February 4th, he followed that up with Executive Order No. 11507 which puts very strong strictu on federal facilities to cort: with a whole lot of environmental po,icy, in particular,of course, things established by the National Environmental Policy Act. On February 10th, having cleaned up that littlematter about facilities directly under government control, we got the President'senvironment message. Again, very strong language. He talks about "total mobilization" for environmental matters. The>>The are some 37 proposals in that Congressional message, of which at least 20 represent new programs. The others are programs collected from here and there that have been goingon anyhow.

40Or) 15

In some cases they are expanded, but mostly not. March 5th, Executive Order No. 11514 was issued. It is a set of directives to the Council of Environmental Quality and agencies expanding the details available for the implementation for the National Environmental Policy Act. suspect, although I am not sure, that that order was largely drafted within the Council for Environmental Quality. April 3rd, the Environ- mental Quality Improvement Act of 1970 was passed and that one, the Muskie Bill that had been sort of racing with the Jackson Bill somewhat unsuccessfully, also has a policy statement. By now it appears to he a shorter and somewhat diluted version of that in the Jackson Bill. It sets up the Office of Environmental Quality with the chairman of the Council of Environmental Quality as director of the Office of Environ- mental Quality and, in short, provides a staff for the Council of Environ- mental Quality to execute both its responsibilities under ::EPA and the additional responsibilities laid out vy this Act. April 22nd, just by way of reference, was Earth Day, in some ways the public press high water mark of this whole episode. Two things happened in May that are kind of interesting that is peripheral to these matters. One was James Allen got fired, largely because of his statements about the war and the environment. Secretary of Interior Hickle wrote the famous letter about young people which was leaked to the press. I have a strong suspicion that it was leaked quite on purpose. Most of them are. In November, he was fired. In terms of the reorganization which I'd like to talk about in just a moment, Hickle was the loser and losers often resign for personal reasons or what not.Walter Hickle is a strange man. They would have to fire him if they were going to get rid of him and they did of course. We're nearly to the end of the era I want to cover. July 9th was the last part of it. Executive reorganization plans 3 and 4 were submitted. Plan 3 was the one that set up the Env,nmental Protection Agency and just in case anyone is not clear, EPA uh.. not set up by an act of Congress. It was set up by a reorganization plan of the President, which under present law, goes to the Congress. If they do not act on it within 60 days, then, it becomes law. Reorganization plan 4 set up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.This resolved the dispute which had been going on since about 1968 and is relevant to the environment and, in fact, was part of the whole battle over reorganization which wound up with having EPA and NOAA, with NOAA in the Department of Commerce and with the Department of the Interior on the whole losing out in this affair. That is, as power and jurisdiction are normally measured, Interior lost, Commerce gained. We have a new agency. I think that's a fair way to state it. Some of the other agencies lost a little bit but for the most part, they didn't care.

Just one more comment about the Muskie Bill. The money finally begins to sound like enough money to do something within the Executive Office of the President. It starts out with S500,000 the first year and goes up to a million and a half by the fourth year. This means that about next year the authorizations will be well up over two million dollars which is enough to do a pretty decent job with an office of the kind that ZEO is supposed to have. One other effort of Muskie's here ought to be taken note of. The Environmental Quality Improvement Act of 1970 takes note of the environmental quality annual report, required to be furnished by the President with the assistance of CEQ and everybody else, and requires

44 16

that it be referred to those Congressional committees having jurisdiction over the particular subject matter. Nnw this is Muskie's way of saying, No, Jackson, you can't have itall.. I demand my piece.This was supported in the House as well. What's happened here is a working out of some of the Congressional jurisdictilnal questions.

Let's take a quick look at the recirpanization and what it amounted to. Government reorganization is taken seriously by almost every new administration that comes in and is often abandoned in confusion and distaste a couple of years later.You can thick of the Commissions that have long since gone by the board from the Hoover Commission onward. A few things get done. You may remember when Nixon came into office, Bud Wilkinson, who seemed to be successful at organizing football teams. was given the job of abolishing useless federal agencies. Right? it's now two and one half years later. So far as I have been be to determine, he has almost succeeded in ending the official existence of the Upper Potomac Battlefield Monument Commission and nothing else. Now don't laugh at Bud Wilkinson. I'd like to see anybody try and dis- establish a long-standing federal agency. It's almost impossible. It's the one place in this world where immortality seems to be guaranteed instantaneously. Nevertheless, there was a high level reorganization group set up, headed by Roy Ash, the president of Litton Industries, to rec =end major government reorganizations. Many of you know of Nixon's message on reorganization last year, and the whole s,,ggestion sounded pretty good. It talked about, for instance, for our purposes, a Department of Natural Resources. These were real recommendations of the Ash Council. There was one fly in the ointment and his name was Maurice Stans, the Secretary of Commerce. A very strange ran. You may remember he was budget director in the latter Eisenhoweryears and he's a tough cookie. He knows a great deal about how the government works end he takes seriously his charge as Secretary of Commerceto promote business and industry in the United States. I think he does this with good intention, although it may make him my mortal enemy becauseat times it pushes us in directions that I think are undesirableto go. The Ash Council had recommended that the National Oceanic and Atmos- pheric Agency be set up within the Department of the Interior and that most of the environmental activities be centered in the Department of the Interior. Losing the Environmental Science Services Administration from Commerce would take away, what was it, 40Z of their personnel, and about a third of their budget and what it left was a collection of medieval guilds that didn't look much like a department of anything. I remember the very specific day that Roy Ash went to have lunch with Maurice Stans to break the news to him that the President intended to tentatively approve that plan. The following day I say Roy Ash and his chief staff man and they looked kind of glum and it seemed the President had changed his mind, or Maurice Stans had changed :Ris mind, or something had happened, because at that point it was decided that NOAAwas going to go into Commerce. Secretary Hickle fought this vigorously asI understand. In the end, Hickle simply lost his credibility and his influence in the White House and eventually was fired.

Walter Hickle was one of those rare items in '..:ashington. A man with a lot of guts who has no hesitation In charging into the bureaucratic 17 swamp for the absurdly simple reason that he thinks he's right. It's rarely done, after all.

What we wind up with in any case is NOAA as the kind of sop to the aerospace industry largely, the supporters of this kind of marine activity. It became obvious that there was no magic alchemy to be had from the oceans, no magic food for the millions, and no magic sources of platinum, diamonds, and gold lying around the bottom of the ocean. That there was, the National Securities Industrial Association felt, was some employment for the industries that were being increasingly displaced by a shrinking defense budget. It was no accident that the most vigorous supporters of those bills were the same people who were in the exploratory submarine business, the underwater habitat business, and all the kinds of hardware uses of the ocean that have become rather prominent.The sop went to Congress with NOAA and reorganization plan 4 let them promote the oceans as a relief measure--a social relief measure for unemployed aerospace capacities. The rest of that program is, I think, a fairly honest attempt to both utilize ocean resources and to exercise some understanding of the oceanic environment before we wreck that too.

EPA wound up as an independent agency because the Interior arguments lost out altogether and because there are some arguments for making an independent agency out of EPA. HEW was unenthusiastic about seeing some substantial hunks of their activity get transferred to Interior, but much less paranoid about having them set up as part of an independent agency. EPA is a patchwork quilt initially, and this patchwork quilt, in case anyone has forgotten, is made up of the Federal Water Quality Adminis tration, formerly the FWPCA from Interior; a group of smaller pesticide programs which came from Interior, HEW, and Agriculture; the National Air Pollution Control Administration from HEW; the Solid Waste, Water Hygiene and Radiology Programs from HEW; the Federal Radiation Council which had been appendage within the Executive Office of the President; and some AEC regulatory functions. More of AEC's regulatory and standard functions were recommended for transfer to this new environment group, but that was before Congressman Holifield moved to the Government Operations Committee. Once he moved, negotiations were taken on directly from Bruce Harlow's office in the White House to see what Holifield would permit being transferred. What he would stand still for being trans ferred was transferred. In particular, general population radiation standards. He would not accept the transfer of the standard setr'ng functions for the nuclear plants themselves. That still technically remains within the AEC. EPA also wound up with the general ecological research function, transferred from the Council of Environmental Quality which was where it never really belonged.

NOAA, was also a patchwork; the Environmental Science Services Administration, which really is the weather bureau, and the Coast and Geodetic Survey were already within Commerce; Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and Marine Sport Fisheries from Interior; Marine Minerals Program from Interior; the Sea Grant Office from the National Science Foundation; and the Lake Survey from the Army. Taking anything from the Army Corps of Engineers and putting it anywhere else is almost out of the question. The Public Works Committee of Congress has been a pork barrel

46 18 for as long as anyone can remember, and even the Corps of Engineers people get very embarrassed about it from time to time.The National Oceanic Instrumentation Center and the National OceanographicData Center, both from the Navy got transferre4 to NOAA.The Navy had been trying to get rid of them for years anyhow. The Data Buoy Program was transferred from the Coast Guard which resisted rather vigorously because it was really the Coast Gua..d's only active researchprogram of any real merit. It's too bad to see the Coast Guard out ofany kind of environmental research activities since they areone of the principal forces as far as the marine area is t..acerned. EPA and NOAA don't really overlap except in this whole area of environmental protectionand it's not clear how that's going to shake down.It depends to some extent on leadership. Ruckelshaus was brought over from the Department ofJustice to be head of EPA. I would say he's an experienced government official, though by no means in my opinion, a match for Bob White,the long time administrator of ESSA or especially for Maurice Stans, butwe shall see how this comes out. Maurice Stans, you may have noted recently, made some statements about how we mustn't now go overboard on the environment, it's bad for business. I'm interpretinga little bit liberally, but that's sort of the attitude he's taking andyes, indeed, some of the things are bad for business. If a concern can't clean up the wastes that they are putting out, they're likely to go out of busi;:sand the people who are employed there may be unhappy.

What has all this added up to in program?The funding of 1969, and these are obligations, was 916 million for environmentalprograms, 1.29 billion in 1970, and 4.8 billion in 1971.That's an increase of almost a factor of 6 in 2 years, that far exceeds even the NASA program'senormous expansion in the early 1960's. Of these numbers, say in 1970, about half are state and local assistance programs for things like sewage treatment programs, about a fourth of that total is research and at least the beginning stages of development. That's about where we stand.

What seems to me to be a fundamental issue lying in back ofall this is one I brought up earlier, this underlying question of whetherwe are going to go in the technocratic direction, or in the democraticdirection. I think the scientific community, or at leastsome of its most vocal parts, have been urging us very strongly to go in a technocratic direction. Let's get the experts and get the facts straight andthen do it. That idea implies that we know what it is we want to do and reeksvery strongly of the cold war notion of what we must do to thosepeople to straighten out their problems. In this case those people are not some poor under- developed nation of the world, those people areus. Somehow I find the present state of affairs more encouraging because with thepresent court decisions and the language of the National Environmental ProtectionAct, the opportunity is there to convert environmentalmatters back into a political issue among the electorate.What is it we wish to do?How seriously do we wish to consider enviroLnental damage? How seriously and how widely range the alternatives we wish for development? How much diversity do we wish to have and tolerate? None of theseare questions which are resolvable by tecnnical expertsor by systems analysis. Once we have resolved those kinds of questions, and wemay well do it in the next two or three elections, then, it becomes possible tosummon up technical experts and say, what we have decidedto do is this, now how 19 do we do it? In that case, most of us who have some technical expertise of some kind or other can yield up some answers that are probably reasonably factual in pursuit of a clear cut goal.

Notice what's happening here, the government really is moving fast. We've had something happen once a month or twice a month for two years, in a new programatic area.At the same time we're fighting a war, we're having riots on the campuses, and riots in the cities. At the end, we had an economic downturn which is why things kind of peter out.The environment took second place to the economic difficulties, I'm afraid. That certainly seems to be what happened this year. One final comment. I don't think the present organization is as good as it should be, and I have made a goat of Maurice Stans. He deserves it in some respects. On the whole it's not as bad as it could have been.It could have been a lot worse and what's more, the way we organize to do things, has to be considered carefully. We're talking about the environment here. The government's problem is that you can organize only one way at a time, but unfortunately, yoq can organize a better way to deal with almost any problem you can think of. The problems continue to increase both in number and in intensity in recent yeaL:, !tit we are still limited to one organization, that in,gle overall government organization. The present court cases, the language of the Act, the availability of environment information much more widely through the environmental impact statements, seem to me to be a democratic direction that comes somewhere near the rather tarnished dream of a participatory government. If we can move in that direction, I think we may stand a chance of getting ourselves out of our difficulties, or at least going in the direction we are going intentionally, something I think we have not been doing very often in recent years.

Q. "Do you feel that during the Nixon Administration the reorganization is over?" A. No, I don't think so. Let me answer that in two ways. I think that the major reorganizations have probably already happened, but I also think that there will be continued pressure toward some of the major features of the Ash reorganization plan. I would not be surprised to see some effort toward converting the Department of the Interior to a Department of Natural Resources with a good deal of resource development activity within it. Whether that can be done, while Stans is Secretary of Commerce I don't know.Whether the Environmental Protection Agency might then become part of this reorganized Depart- ment of Natural Resources, I don't know. Such a course was recommended by the Ash Council as a next best alternative before they disbanded. I don't know whether any attention will be paid to that or not. It would make a lot of sense as far as I am concerned.A free standing agency has a lot of difficulty when the going gets rough.Right now EPA has a reasonable, although not very closely connected, constituency in the public. That situation could change and you then have difficulties like the National Science Foundation has frequently had. I would suspect it would be better to have a Department of Natural Resources with some major units of which EPA might be one.

4'8 20

Q. "Will the backlash typified by some of Maurice Stens' statements gut the environmental interest among people?"

A. I find that hard to predict. No, I don't think so. In some local issues, the automobile highway issues, for instance, no amount of papering over is going to change feelings so long as automobile sales grow at a rate which permit the economy to expand as everyone expects. By the end of the century such growth will have reached absurdity. That has to change, and one way or another, we're going to have to deal with issues of that kind.Our present way of operating depends upon our automobile sales remaining above six million cars per year. By 1980, it looks as though growth elsewhere in the economy would require that figure to be up closer to nine million cars per year. Something like twenty per cent of the labor force of the United States, directly or indirectly, is involved with the automobile industry. That must change before the turn of the century, which isn't all that far off.Most of us are likely to still be around. We simply cannot tolerate either the air pollution or that much machinery around. There isn't any obvious way to deal with the auto problem, so I don't think it's going to go away. In some areas, the enormous concern about rather small effects may diminish a good deal. A slight change in popular opinion might emphasize other social programs--for instance, in the city--in which environment will take second place, and we put out a little more air pollution.Well, you put another black box in your chimney. I think it would be a mistake to do that, but I think it may happen.

Q. "What is your opinion of Muskie's current bill on recycling and zero discharge?"

A. That puzzles me. The zero discharge notion is, of course, errant nonsense. You are going to discharge something, no matter what we do, unless we elect to suddenly stop engaging in any kind of industrial enterprise whatever. I really don't know what the intention is behind that bill.The zero discharge part appears to me to be just absurd.That's as bad as the Indiana legislature which, some years ago, almost passed a bill setting pi equal to 3. You can pass the bill but it won't happen. I wonder if that bill of Muskie's might have been partly a device to be useful during his campaign. Congressman Harley Staggers has been introducing a bill to prevent all weather modification every session for the last eight sessions of Congress.He introduces it about three weeks before Congress adjourns, and then goes home and campaigns on the issue. A lot of the people in West Virginia are persuaded that the government is modifying their weather.

n Ka9 214 .)- Supplement I

FEDERAL ENVIRONMLNTAL TIMETABLE 1969

January 20 - Inauguration

January 28 - Santa Barbara 0:1 Spill

May 29 - Executive Order 11472 Environmental Quality Council and Citizen's Committee established

July 10 - House Appropriations Committee. Billed funds for Environmental Quality Council

July 18 President's message on population

August 22 New Nickel rules on offshore oil and gas

September Environmental Policy Division in Legislative Reference Bureau of Library of Congress established

November 4 - General Accounting Office report on water pollution

November 25 Congress increases air pollution research 18 million to 45 million

December 4 - Public Works appropriation waste treatment request 214 million 800 million appropriation - authorization 1 billion

1970

January 1 PL 91-190 - National Environmental Policy Act signed

January 22 - State of the Union message - "most comprehensive and costly program in history" 10 billion

February 4 - Executive Order 11507 for Abatement of Pollution of Federal Facilities

February 10 President's Environmental Message - "total mobilization" for environment - 37 proposals

March 5 - Executive Order 11514 - Agency & Council on Environmental Quality responsibilities defined in detail

April 3 - PL 91-224 - Environmental Quality Improvement Act of 1970 - Office of Environmental Quality established

April 22 - Earth Day

July 9 - Executive Reorganization Plans 3 & 4: 3 - Environmental Protection Agency; 4 - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Fall - Economic downturn 23

CO AND ITS ROLE IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

Thomas C. Winter Staff Member Council on Environmental Quality Washington, D.C.

Historically the Federal government, like many bureaucracies, has had trouble coordinating programs between its entities. As a result, most programs have been conceived so that they fail pretty much within the jurisdiction of one agency. Over a hundred years ago the Federal government decided to take a more active role in the field of agriculture. The Department of Agriculture was formed. Over a decade ago it was decided that this nation should vigorously participate in the exploration of space. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created to achieve this goal.

The Federal government's various environmental programs are not so easily placed within one agency. if one agency were created to encompass all programs effecting the environment, there would be very little left over for the other agencies to accomplish, since most Federal activities are affected in a major way by environmental considerations. A truly coordinated approach is required by all Federal agencies if we are to preserve and enhance our environment.

Congress set forth its strategy to achieve this coordination in the National Environmental Policy Act, referred to as NEPA, which was signed into law on New Year's Day of 1970 - the first law of the new decade. NEPA's basic purpose is to insure that Federal officials weigh environmental considerations along with the more familiar mission and economic considerations in policy formulation, decision making, and administrative actions. Few quarrel with this concept in theory, of course, and the words sound nice. But the challenge is to actually do this, in accordance with the spirit of the Act, in real life situations where resource limitations and other practical factors necessitate that trade-offs be made.

The basic mechanism to carry out the spirit of NEPA is the environmental impact statement.This mechanism mandates that Federal agencies implement the basic NEPA tenets of environmental considerations in Federal actions. It further provides that these implementation actions receive "goldfish bowl" type of visibility. Too often in the past there have been cases where the planning considerations in many agency actions were kept from the public and were not released until after the decisions had been made. At this late time it is extremely difficult for the informed public, particularly when they do not have the staff resources which the agencies do, to affect the decision.

An environmental impact statement is required from the prime Federal agency in all actions which have significant effect on the environment,

31 24 regardless of whether any of its funds are involved. The law requires the statement to address the following points: the environmental impact of the proposed action, any adverse impacts which cannot be avoided by the action, the alternative courses of action, the relation between local short-term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and a description of the irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources which would occur if the action were accomplished.

Interim implementing guidelines were issued by the Council on Environmental Quality shortly after the passage of the Act. Final guidelines were issued on April 23 of that year. These guidelines make it explicit that the draft environmental impact statement should be prepared as early as possible in the planning process.The intent is that as soon as a fair grasp of the problems involved is obtained, the draft will be prepared and circulated for comment. It is not necessary or even desirable to wait until after solutions have been worked out for these problems. It's better to get the input from the interested and informed public before solutions are worked out rather than afterwards. Further, the guidelines require, with few exceptions, that no agency administrative actions will occur for at least 90 days after the draft is circulated and for at least 30 days after the final statement is made public. To date the Council has received over 2,000 environmental impact statements.

When you get right down to it, NEPA is a piece of legislation with quite a broad mandate, just as is our Constitution. It could be interpreted in many ways, from merely a statement of philosophy with very little provision for actual implementation, to the establishment of a detailed procedure within the Federal government requiring considerable effort. The real test as to how it should be implemented has been taking place in the courts of law.In general, most of the court decisions have favored a rather strict interpretation of NEPA and implementation of its spirit. As one judge said when discuhuing the legality of its provisions within the framework of other Constitutional authorities, "NEPA goes right up to the brink, but it does not quite go over."

A significant case which has bearing on the environmental impact statement mechanism involved a nuclear power plant which is under construction on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Here the plaintiffs challenged the basic ground rules of the Atomic Energy Commission in implementing the National Environmental Policy Act. AEC was involved, of course, since they must grant licenses to all nuclear power plants, both to construct them and to operate them.The judge in his opinion last July made the following points:

1. The environmental impact statement mechanism and other provisions of NEPA were effective on the date that the law was signed and not on the date, 15 months later when AEC established their machinery to actually implement the law.

1Calvert Cliffs Coordinating Committee, Inc.v. AEC, No. 24, 839 (D.D.Cir. decided July 23, 1971).

39 25

2. AEC must consider all environmental issues and not just those, such as radiation, in which it has particular expertise.

3. AEC must evaluate all issues even if they have been previously certified by the Federal government or States as meeting the applicable standards.

4. AEC must look at the projects whose construction licenses were granted before the date of the Act if the operating licenses were not granted until after the date of the Act.

5. The AEC blanket policy to not halt the construction of existing power plants was wrong. Each plant should be considered on its own environmental merits, even if construction is underway.

In his opinion the judge commented that the court's duty is to see:

"...that important legislative purposes, heralded in the halls of Congress, are not lost or misdirected in the vast hallways of the Federal bureaucracy."

The import of this decision is that the environmental impact statement mechanism is effective from the date of the Act and that it must be followed in spirit as well as in form.

In the early court cases involving NEPA the emphasis was on whether a statement should or should not be filed. A much publicized decision along this line concerned the haulroad connected with the Alaska pipe line. In the spring of 1970 a court issued an injunction against further construction until the provisions of NEPA and of the Mineral Leasing Act were complied with. One of the key issues underlying this decision was that an environmental impact statement had not been prepared.

More recently, the adequacy of consideration has been a significant point in suits involving the environmental impact statement mechanism. One such case concerned the construction of Gillham Dam across the Cossatot River in Arkansas.2This project was approved in 1958. Project construction began in 1963 and was about twothirds complete at the time of the trial.The Corps of Engineer.;, the defendant, did issue an environmental impact statement. But the plaintiffs contended that:

"...the impact statement simply does not set forth a detailed study and examination of the important environmental factors involved."

In the ruling the Court made the comment that the defendant must:

"...util..ze systematic and interdisciplinary approach using natural and social sciences and environmental design arts, include discussion of value of river

2Gillham Dam Environmental Defense Fund v. Ccrps o): Engineers, 325 F. Supp. 728, 749 (E.D. Ark. 1971).

33 26

without the dam, include all environmental impacts of dam construction, explore all alternatives to dam construction, include all irreversible commitments of resources, and include comments of federal, state, and local agencies."

The important point here is that in this and similar cases the courts are insisting that the spirit of the law as laid down in NEPA be followed and that all options be considered. But - and this is significant - the courts are not attempting to substitute their judgements for those made by the agencies in the Executive branch.

Another provision of NEPA established the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President.The Council is primarily involved in the recommendation of plans and policy. A major portion of its work concerns the environmental legislativeprogram, its formulation, passage, and implementation. Another important function of the Council is to insure that procedures to implement the environmental impact statement mechanism are established within the Federal government and are made to work in a manner which will insure that environmental considerations are given due weight along with the mission and economic considerations in Federal activities, with minimum administrative burden to the agencies. NEPA requires that one copy of each environmental impact statement be submitted to the Council. The President, in Executive Order 11514, March 5, 1970, 'urther directed that the Council would:

"issue guidelines to Federal agencies for the preparation of detailed statements on proposals for legislation and other Federal actions affecting the environment, as required by Section 102 (2) (C) of the Act."

I want to emphasize that our primary role is to see that the mechanism works and not, as is believed by many, to make a detailed evaluation of each statement. We simply do not have the expertise or the staff size required to evaluate each and every statement ina critical and objective manner.

There are several ways in which a statement can be evaluated.The first is within the agency which prepares it.I mentioned earlier the Council's guidelines (issued in the Federal Register, Volume 36, April 23, 1971, pp. 7724) which require that a draft statement be preparedas soon as possible in the planning process and be made available to the public. In the process of preparing the statement and evaluating the comments received on it, it is intended that a fair judgement will be made within the agency concerning the action and all the trade-offs involved.

If there is disagreement with the decision of the departmentor agency, the next formal review process can be taken by the President. In practice, agency actions which invoke interest at the Presidential level are usually identified in advance and guidance is givento the Department before the decision is made. For this category of actions,

34 27

the Council, as the chief advisor to the President on environmental matters, becomes more deeply involved. Examples of such actions are the application for permits to operate new off-shore drilling platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, the Alaska pipeline, and the Tocks Island Dam.

Another opportunity for evaluation is by Congress for those actions which require funds or other Congressional approval. Examples not requiring Congressional approval would include cases where the only Federal action required is the issuance of a permit. Illustrations are the recent proposal to build another bridge across San Francisco Bay and an application to fill in a section of a bay in Florida in order to construct a trailer park. The Coast Guard had permit authority over the bridge since it could be a navigational hazard. The Corps of Engineers had permit authority over the fill permit since it involved discharges into navigable waters. The permits in both cases were denied, not because the proposed actions posed threats to navigation, but, under the authority of NEPA, because of environmental reasons.

In Congress the debate which occurs within the Congressional committees and on the floor itself, as exemplified by issues such as the SST, provides another opportunity for the informed public to input into the decision making process and to further evaluate the decisions by the Executive Branch.

Still another method for evaluating the adequacy of the environmental impact statements and the correctness of the decisions made as a result of them is through the courts. The Calvert Cliffs case, which I mentioned earlier, is an excellent example of this.

110w does CEQ insure that the environmental impact statement mechanism works efficiently? I have already mentioned the guidelines which we have published and which are periodically reviewed and updated. In December of each year we have meetings with the departments and agencies to review our guidelines and their procedures for implementing them. Public comment is invited on this process. For example, last month a formal invitation for public comment was issued in the Federal Register (Volume 36, December 11, 1971, page 23666).

Another way in which CEQ implements its responsibilities is through an informal review of the copies of the draft and final statements. A portion of the staff of CEQ focuses on impact statement evaluation. They try to read each one that comes through and identify which ones should merit further evaluation at the Executive Office level. Of course, this evaluation comes from more than just the statement itself.Other inputs include the correspondence which CEQ receives, the public media, and the personal contacts which we have with members of the public.

We try to see that the public is kept informed of the statements which are filed. This is accomplished first through the "102 Monitor," a monthly publication of the Council, which identifies the new statements filed during the past month within each department, the person in the department to contact concerning these statements, and also comments on issues, such as the. Calvert Cliffs decision, which have bearing on the 28 environmental impact statement process. The second formal Federal distribution method for these statements is through the National Technical Information Service, from which copies of statements can be purchased at a nominal cost.

Environmental factors have always been a big consideration in the personal lives of most of us. Now, like death and taxes, they are an integral part of our professional lives. Congress, through the National Environmental Policy Act, has established the framework to consider and implement procedures to enhance and preserve the quality of our environment. The administrators in the Executive Branch are beginning to implement these in their decisions and actions.The judgements of the courts are strengthening the implementation of the policy established by Congress. Some people would like to ignore or downplay environmental factors, particularly when costs are involved. But this simply cannot be done if we expect to preserve and enhance the quality of life for our and future generations. As I read the trend, the easiest way to fulfill the spirit of NEPA is to place the cards out on the table and make explicit value judgements in the most objective manner possible. The problems, trade-offs, and effects must be delineated and then decisions made. If these decisions are made in a straight forward manner, then there should be no qualms about defending them. We can expect controversy since these decisions involve resource trade-offs, great financial costs, and value judgements. This is healthy.

In the past many decisions were not made in a straight-forward fashion and hence could not be defended when the public spotlight was directed on them. At the other extreme is the danger of people who make decisions in a straight-forward manner and then shy away from defending them because of the hue and outcry which various extremist groups cause. We must not fall into either of these traps. As James Baldwin says:

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." 29

SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT PROGRAM

Neil Orloff* Assistant Director Office of Federal Activities Environmental Protection Agency Washington, D.C.

Major problems have been witnessed in most stages of the environmental impact statement program. Problems arise in determining the proper point in the agency decision-making process when the question should he faced of whether to prepare an impact statement, in deciding whether an impact statement should be prepared for a particular proposed action, in writing an impact statement once a decision is made to prepare one, in circulating the impact statement for comment, and in integrating the major conclusions of the final statement in a meaningful way into the overall decision-making process.

This paper discusses some of these problems, and provides suggestions for solving or minimizing them. The Council on Environmental Quality's guidelines provide, pursuant to Executive Order 11514, the framework for implementation of the impact statement program. Accord- ingly, particular attention has been given in this paper to how CEQ's guidelines could be revised to implement the suggestions.

I. Decision on Preparing an Impact Statement

CEQ's current guidelines directly address in Section 2 and Sec- tions 5(a), (b), and (c) the timing for this decision and criteria to be used in making the decision. In Section 2, the guidelines state that, "As early as possible and in all cases prior to agency decision.

. ." an impact statement shall be prepared. In Section 5(a), the guidelines say that actions for which impact statements may be required include recommendations or favorable reports on legislation and projects and continuing activities directly undertaken by Federal agencies. In Section 5(b), the guidelines state that the statutory clause "major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment" should be construed with a view to the overall effects of the actions contemplated; and in Section 5(c), the guidelines state that the agency should assess a broad range of environmental factors.

*The comments in this paper reflect Mr. Orloff's personal views. They do not necessarily represent the official position of the Environmental Protection Agency.

37 30

The intent behind these guidelines apt ed:s to have been to leave it up to the individual agencies to define with specificity the situations when an impact statement needs to be prepared. In practice, however, this has been done in few cases. Agency implementing regulations frequently skirt the questions surrounding the decision toprepare a statement with ambiguous phrases. For example, the Forest Service's regulations state that an environmental assessment shall be prepared "as early as possible and in all cases prior to agency decision. . . ."

There appear to be two 1.ajor causes of this problem.The first is that Federal agencies have attempted to implement the requirements of NEPA in one broad sweep. Agencies have tried to group substantially different activities within one set of procedures.And in doing so, the agencies have ended up with guidelines so general that they oftenare not very helpful.

The second major cause of the problem appears to be that thecon- ceptual steps involved in reaching the stage of writing an impact statement are frequently not well understood. At least six distinct steps can be identified. The first is to categorize for each bureau (or sub-bureau) of an agency those types of actions whichare likely to involve environmental effects. The second step is to identify for each of these types of actions the environmental considerations frequently involved, e.g. sulphur oxide emissions, sedimentation, heatedwater discharge, accidental spill of toxic substances, etc. The third (large) step is to identify what basic information on these environmental effects needs to be gathered, who is to gather it, and when it isto be gathered so that a reasoned decision can be made on whether an impact statement should be prepared.The fourth step is simply to designate a specific point in the various decision-making processes by which time the decision should be made on whether an impact statement is required. The fifth step is to provide detailed guidance on the considerations involved in making this decision.The procedures frequently say that the decision is a matter of judgment. This is correct, but this skirts the question of what factors are involved in reaching a judgment. Included here, for example, would be detailed guidance on what to do about projects already partially constructed.Finally, the agency must provide procedures for implementing whatever decision is reached. There should be follow-up, even in the situation where the decision is made not to prepare a statement.

CEQ has recently issued a notice of impending revision of its guidelines. Given the ambiguity which surrounds most agencies' implementing regulations, it would be desirable if CEQ's new guidelines required each agency to prepare detailed informationon each of the above six steps. Field personnel of Federal agencies are usually responsible for deciding whether an impact statement should bepre- pared. Accordingly, it is important for them to receive clear guidance on how to approach making this decision. If NEPA is to be effective, it will be in large part because of a clear awareness by the field personnel of the environmental inquiries that must be made. 31

II. Notification to Public of Decision on Whether an Impact Statement is to be Prepared

With the exception of EPA and the Federal Highway Administration, it does not appear that Federal agencies' procedures provide for public notification of whether an impact statement will be prepared for a specific action. EPA's procedures provide that. after a decision is made on whether an impact statement will be prepared, either a "notice of intent" or a "negative declaration" will be published. The notice of intent states that a decision has been made to prepare an impact statement. The negative declaration states that a decision has been made not to prepare an impact statement.

There are a number of advantages to this public disclosure. In the case where an impact statement is to be prepared, it provides an opportunity at an early stage in the planning process for all interested parties to express concern about and provide guidance on the environmental effects involved. Although an opportunity for comment is provided at the draft impact statement stage, in practice planning for the action is further along at this stage and modifications are thus more difficult to make. Another practical advantage is that publication of a "notice of intent" can potentially make the public more aware of the Federal Government's concern for and commitment to analyzing the effects on the environment of Its proposed actions.

The other side of the coin is that nothing is lost by publishing a notice of intent. The public will almost always have an opportunity to comment on the draft statement; publication of a notice of intent only gives the public an early opportunity to express its views.

There are similar advantages to publication of a negative declaration. The public is again informed that an assessment has been made of whether the proposed action is likely to have a significant effect on the environment. If people disagree with this decision, they have an early opportunity to express .heir disagreement.In so doing, they provide the agency with an early warning of possible error in not preparing a statement. This early warning is far preferable to waiting until an agency is just about to take an action, and then facing the possibility of an injunction halting the action because an impact statement has not been prepared. Although suit for this injunction could still be filed at this late date, the Federal agency would be in a much better position to defend itself if it had filed a public notice of decision not to prepare a statement. Such publication would clearly weaken any suit alleging that no inquiry into possible environmental damage was made and that no opportunity was given the public to express its concern or to show cause why an impact statement should be prepared.

An argument might be made that requirement to publish negative declarations would be difficult to administer.The argumLlt goes that a great number of proposed actions would fall into the category of no impact statement needed, whereas a much smaller number of actions would require impact statements, and thus agencies might be flooded by the requirement to publish negative declarations.The argument would be valid if negative declarations were filed for all actions, including qn 32

such ones as purchase of an advertisement or promotion ofan employee. But negative declarations are clearly not required in thesecases. Negative declarations would only be required in the much smallercate- gory of cases where an inquiry was necessary on whether a statement should be prepared, and where the decision turned out to be negative. In the above two examples, it is clear that no inquirywas necessary on whether NEPA applied to the proposed action.

III. Writing an Impact Statement

The majority of the impact statements are far too superficial. They lack the breadth and depth of analysis appropriate foran understanding of the effect on the environment of the proposed action.Sub- stantial progress has been made by some agencies over the lasttwo years in improving their analyses. Still, however, the majority of the analyses are very superficial.

Nothwithstanding sections (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), and (v) of 102(2)(C), five basic questions need to be addressed in preparingan impact statement. First, what is the proper project entity for purposes of preparing a statement?Clearly, neither the erection of lights, as part of a new airport, nor all possible sources of energy in the U.S., in the case of a new power plant, are proper projectentities. Second, what is the range of environmental considerations appropriatefor this project entity, i.e. what are the primary and whatare the induced or secondary environmental effects that need to be considered? Third, what is the basic data about the project and its surroundingsthat is needed to investigate the environmental effects? Fourth, what analysis of this basic data is necessary, and what is the significanceof the conclusions resulting from the analysis? Finally, what are the promising alternative formulations of the project that need to be considered?

The first question, that of defining a proper project entity, recurringly produces a dilemma. On the one hand, a broad formulation of the project entity often makes analysis unmanageably complex. Analysis is also sometimes extremely difficult because of lack of informationat the level of the person preparing the statement. For example, the construction of an oil pipeline involves possible damageto the environment. It raises the question whether alternative forms ofenergy generation and transmission might be appropriate.Yet this is an exceedingly complex analysis to make, and requires information readily available to few people.

A broad formulation also results on occasion in too littleatten- tion placed on the particular action at hand. It may also result in unnecessary duplication of effort when statements are writtenon similar types of projects that are located in differentparts of the country.

The other side of the dilemma is that anarrow formulation makes it impossible to put the action in perspective. In the case of individually small projects, cumulative effects of relatedprojects are obscured. In the case of a single large complex project, and in the case of a chain of projects (e.g. the nuclear fuel chain), highly damaging components are sometimes justifiedon the grounds that the 33 other components of the project are already constructed, and the benefits resulting from the small additional expenditure outweigh the damage.

As a solution to this dilemma, the new CEQ guidelines could require over-view impact statements to be prepared on appropriately defined groups of projects. These over-view statements would be in addition to the impact statement on the individual project or action. For example, it appears that over-view impact statements should be prepared on the Bureau of Reclamation's Frying Pan Arkansas Project, the Forest Service's program for timber supply and harvesting, the construction of water resource projects along the Colorado River Basin, the nuclear fuel chain, etc. Some of these over-view impact statements might require inter-agency cooperation. The statements of course need not reach conclusions on the desirability of any of these programs or parts of the programs (although in practice this is likely to result). Rather, i;le over-view impact statements would serve as background analyses enabling one to put the individually proposed actions in perspective.

Impact statements are frequently superficial, even in the cases where the project for analysis is appropriately defined. This super- ficiality appears to result from lack of guidance on how to do an environmental analysis, or even on what kind of basic information is required. For example, many highway impact statements prepared by field personnel do not contain estimates of the number or types of vehicles likely to traverse the highway.Yet it seems clear that the headquarters of the Federal Highway Administration could, without substantial difficulty, prepare a handbook to serve as a guide to preparing impact statements on highways. To date the guidance given by most headquarters offices of Federal agencies has been more procedural than substantive. EPA has been no less negligent in this area than have been other Federal agencies.

CEQ's new guidelines should therefore, I think, require each Federal agency to prepare conceptual frameworks for analysis for the major types of projects supported by the agency. As a start, conceptual frameworks for analysis should be prepared for highways (perhaps subdivided into rural, suburban, and urban highways), airports, sewage treatment plants, power projects, watershed projects, and mineral extraction on public lands (perhaps subdivided by type of mineral, type of extraction method, and character of the public land). These six categories of projects account, according to CEQ's November 102 Monitor, for 80% of all Federal actions for which draft or final impact statements have been prepared.

These frameworks should spell out the considerations in determining the proper project entity for analysis, the range of inquiry appropriate for the project entity, the basic type of data needed, the major analyses of the data to be performed, and the types of alternatives to be investigated. EPA is prepared to assist Federal agencies, within EPA's six pollution areas (air, water, solid wastes, pesticides, radiation, and noise), in their preparation of these conceptual frameworks for analysis.

In setting forth the range of environmental considerations appropriate for a particular type of project, the conceptual framework must go

41 34

beyond obvious questions such as potentialfor air and water pollution. Two forms of shortsightedness have frequently occurred. The first is where the initial or primary effects of theproject have been taken into consideration, but the secondary or induced effectsof the project have been ignored. For example, statements on highways andsewage treatment plants seldom evaluate the impact on urban growthpatterns resulting from the construction and operation of theprojects. These secondary or induced effects may, however, bemore damaging than the primary effects. The second form of shortsightedness is thetendency to consider only changes in the physical environment andto ignore possible alterations of the social environment." Yet impacts on populationpatterns or community behavioral patterns may affect thequality of the human environment much more than impacts on air andsolid waste. This shortsightedness must be remedied.The conceptual framework for analysis should start us in the right direction byexplicitly setting forth the range of environmental consequences to be considered.

The conceptual framework for each type of project would alsoset forth the basic information neededto do an environmental analysis. is surprising how many impact It statements contain no informationon the ambient air quality or the existingdegree of water degradation in the areas to be affected. This basic information is essentialfor an environmental analysis, yet it is usuallynot given.

Finally, the framework shouldproduce a major advance in analysis of alternatives. (The AEC's recently issued guideto the preparation of benefit-cost analyses is exemplaryin this regard.) The conceptual framework should require, asa preface to an analysis of alternatives, a statement of the objectives of the proposed action. A summary of the reasons for the stated objective should beincluded, along with the consequences of taking no action. The summary should be reinforcedwith a bibliography of materials that documentthe formulation of the stated objective. The framework should describe therange of alternatives generally to be considered and shouldrequire that all alternative actions that will also accomplish thestated objective be described in detail, including relative financialcosts. Whenever an alternative will fail to accomplish fully the stated objective, the impactstate- ment should clearly define to what extent itwill accomplish the objective. The results of any cost-benefitanalysis should always be included.

IV. Circulation of Statements

Universal Numbering System

There are presently on the order of1,500 draft impact statements in either the preparation or the review stage. In addition, about 900 final statements have been filed so far. This mushrooming number of projects for which environmental analyses have been prepared is creating for EPA, and likely for other agencies, difficulty in keeping track of all the statements in the system. The problem is especially difficult since there is no generally agreed upon terminology to describe a project (how, for example, does one describe a 30-mile segment oftrans- mission line--by the company building the line?By the counties which

4.2 35 the line traverses?By the power plant from which the line emanates? By the town to which the line goes? By the national forest through which the line passes?By some esoteric combination of these?).

A simple solution to this problem would be for CEQ to implement a universal numbering system for all environmental impact statements. EPA has recently developed such a system, which CEQ may decide to use. EPA's system utilizes a four-part code, an example of which would be D DOT 40315-18. The first part, "D," tells whether the statement is a draft or final. The second part, "DOT," designates the Federal agency that prepared the statement.The third part, "40315," designates the type of project and also numbers the specific project. For example, in EPA's system, all numbers between 40000 and 48999 refer to highway projects; all numbers between 51000 and 51999 refer to airport projects, etc. The fourth part, "18," designates the State or territory in which the project is located. A more complete description of the system is contained in a supplement to this paper.

Circulation of Final Statement

Only a few Federal agencies presently follow the practice of sending a copy of the final impact statement to each party who commented on the draft statement. This practice should, I think, be made mandatory in the revised CEQ guidelines. Provision of a final statement would allow people who commented on the draft to see what changes, if any, occurred in the agency's environmental analysis as a result of their comments. The current system does not easily permit this, since in most cases there is no clear relationship between the time when a draft statement is filed with CEQ and the time a final statement is filed.However, this follow-up is often necessary if the final statements are to become more than just draft statements with attachments. * * *

Substantial progress has been made over the last year in improving the impact statement program. A general awareness now exists among most Federal agencies of the need to consider environmental factors in their decision-making processes, and the impact statement program is taking firm root as the vehicle for launching this consideration.

Still, however, serious problems remain.This paper has discussed some of the outstanding ones, and made several recommendations. The recommendations aim at improving both the mechanics of the impact statement program, and the substantive analyses that emerge as a result of the program. What remains is actual integration of these analyses in a meaningful way into agency decision-making processes.

43 36

Supplement

SUGGESTED UNIVERAL NUMBERING SYSTEM

D DOT 40315 - 18 (T)(2) (3) (4)

(1) Designates whether the statement is a draft ("D") or a final ("F").

(2) Designates the Federal agency drafting the statement (each Federal agency has a 3-letter code).

(3) A statement number which also serves as a code for the subject of the statement. A different number would be assigned to each statement prepared by a single agency. For example, all numbersbetween40000 and 48999 refer to highway projects. Likewise, numbers between 51000 and 51999 refer to airport projects.

(4) Denotes the State or Territory in which the project is located ("01' through "57"). For those projects which are not identifiable with a particular location, the code "00" is used.

See the following pages foragency,subject, and State- Territory codes to be used.

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Environmental Impact Statement Control Numbers (Agency Code)

Agency 1/ 3-Digit Code

Atomic Energy Commission AEC Appalachian Regional Commission ARC Delaware River Basin Commission DRB Department of Agriculture DOA Department of Commerce DOC Department of Defense: Corps of Engineers COE Other DOD Department of H.E.W. HEW Department of H.U.D. HUD Department of Interior DOT Department of Transportation DOT Department of Treasury THE Environmental Protection Agency EPA Federal Power Commission FPC General Services Administration GSA International Boundary & Water Commission--U.S. & Mexico IBW National Aeronautics & Space Administration NAS National Science Foundation NSF New England River Basin Commission NER Office of Science and Technology OST Tennessee Valley Authority TVA U.S. Water Resources Council WRC

1/ These agencies represent all that have developed impact statements to date. New 3-letter codes can be assigned to additional agencies as the need arises.

1 45 38

Environmental impact Statement Control Numbers (Subject Code)

Energy 00001-09999

AEC Nuclear Development 00001-00999 Mining 01000-01999 Natural Gas & Oil: drilling & exploration 02000-02999 transportation, pipeline 03000-03999 Power: hydroelectric 05000-05999 nuclear 06000-06999 other 07000-07999 transmission 08000-08999

Military & Space 10000-19999

Defense Systems 10000-10999 Military Installations 11000-11999 Space Programs 12000-12999

Waste Disposal 20000-29999

Detoxification of Toxic Substances 20000-20999 Munition Disposal 21000-21999 Radioactive Waste Disposal 22000-22999 Recycling 23000-23999 Sewage Facilities 24000-24999 Solid Wastes 25000-25999

Water 30000-39999

Beach Erosion, Hurricane Protection 30000-30999 Irrigation 31000-31999 Navigation 32000-33999 Municipal & Industrial Supply 34000-34999 Permit (Refuse Act, Dredge & Fill) 35000-35999 Watershed Protection & Flood Control 36000-39999

46 39

Environmental Impact Statement Control Numbers (Subject Code)

Transportation 40000-59999

Roads (Ex Thru Parks) 40000-48999 Roads Through Parks 49000-49999 Bridge Permits 50000-50999 Airports 51000-51999 Aircraft, Ships & Vehicles 52000-52999 Railroads 53000-53999 Mass Transit 54000-54999

Land Use 60000-69999

Land Acquisition, Disposal 60000-60999 Parks, Wildlife Refuges, Recreation Facilities 61000-61999 Forestry 62000-62999

Other 80000-89999

International Boundary 80000-80999 Buildings 81000-81999 Pesticides, Herbicides 82000-82999 Weather Modification 83000-83999 Research & Development 84000-84999 Housing, Urban Problems, New Communities 85000-85999 Miscellaneous 89000-89999

Regulations, Legislation, Budgets, etc. 90000-99999 40

Environmental Impact Statement Control Numbers (State/TerritoryCode)

Region I

Maine 01 New Hampshire 02 Vermont 03 Massachusetts 04 Connecticut 05 Rhode Island 06

RegionLL

New York 07 New Jersey 08 Puerto Rico 09 Virgin Islands 10

Region III

Pennsylvania 11 Maryland 12 Delaware 13 West Virginia 14 Virginia 15 District of Columbia 16

Region IV

Kentucky 17 North Carolina 18 South Carolina 19 Georgia 20 Florida 21 Alabama 22 Tennessee 23 Mississippi 24

Region V

Michigan 25 Wisconsin 26 Illinois 27 Indiana 28 Ohio 29 Minnesota 30

Region VI

New Mexico 31 Oklahoma 32 Arkansas 33 Texas 34 Louisiana 35 Environmental Impact Statement Control Numbers (State/Territory Code)

Region VII

Nebraska 36 Iowa 37 Kansas 38 Missouri 39

Region VIII

Montana 40 North Dakota 41 South Dakota 42 Wyoming 43 Utah 44 Colorado 45

Region IX

California 46 Nevada 47 Arizona 48 Hawaii 49 American Samoa 50 Guam 51 Trust Territory Pacific Islands 52 Wake Island 53

Region X

Washington 54 Oregon 55 Idaho 56 Alaska 57

F Two Years of Labor and Learning 45

THE FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION

John J. Kessler Assistant District Engineer Federal Highway Administration Madison, Wisconsin

I particularly appreciate the opportunity to participate in this conference with you today. Certainly the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 is a landmark piece of legislation with far-reaching impact, and although the law has been on the books now for two years, we have by no means reached a point where we could call the implementation of this law a routine procedure. It is especially timely then to have a conference such as this where we can exchange ideas about our operating experiences and problems.

So that you may know what to expect for the next thirty minutes, let me outline briefly my presentation. I would first like to describe where the Federal Highway Administration is, at the present time, in implementing the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (NEPA). I would then like to discuss some of the problems our agency has encountered in day-to-day operations with NEPA and some of our more recent changes in procedures. And lastly, I will attempt to reserve a ten-minute period at the end of the talk to answer any questions you may have.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the Federal Highway Administration let me quickly describe our organization and give you some perspective as to the magnitude of the highway program. FHWA's principle role is to administer a grant-in-aid program in partnership with the State highway departments. The highway program is perhaps best known for the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways--roads like 1-94 between Minneapolis and Milwaukee--but the program covers a wide range of projects and has been in existence for more than half a century with amazingly little change in concept, although it, of course, has changed in emphasis to adjust to what FHWA believed to be changing public needs and attitudes, to NEPA, and to other Federal legislation.

Ir very round numbers, FHWA administers annually a five billion dollar program (Federal funds) with 5,000 employees. The relationship between the size of the program and the number of employees is significant as I shall relate a little later in describing how we implement NEPA. Nationwide, five billion dollars translates to 5,000 individual projects annually, ranging from projects to increase the capacity and stfety of a street intersection, to projects involving totally new multi- lane freeways through densely developed urban areas. To relate the immensity of this public works program to the Environmental Policy Act, more than half of all the environmental statements that have been submitted to the Council on Environmental Quality from all the Federal agencies have come from FHWA. 51 46

It has been a basic tenet of the Federal-aid highwayprogram to work in a close partnership relationship with the recipient of the grant-in-aid, namely the State highway departments. Under this arrangement, State officials have the primary responsibility for planning and carrying out the highway program.Organizationally, FHWA has a division office in or near the capital cities of each of the 50 states, and the division engineers in charge of each of those offices have been delegated the authority, with few exceptions, to administer theprogram in their States.One significant exception to this delegation of authority involves the Environmental Policy Act and a closely related statute. I will elaborate upon that limitation in a few moments. Here in Wisconsin Division Engineer Robert H. Paddock, whom many of you know, supervises a staff of 30 permanent employees headquartered in Madison.He administers a Federal-aid program amounting to approximately sixty-five million dollars in Federal funds, plus matching State funds, annually.

With that brief introduction to FHWA, letme turn then to the subject of this presentation, "Two Years of Labor and Learning,"for it has been just two years, two years and four days to beexact, since President Nixon on January 1, 1970 signed into law the Environmental Policy Act of 1970. Aside from its far-reaching philosophical impact, NEPAis administratively significant in two respects. First, the language of the law is exceptionally broad. For example, the part of the law pertaining to theprepara- tion of environmental statements is applicable to major Federalactions significantly affecting the environment. What is major? What is a significant effect upon the environment? The legislative history is less than clear as to the intent of Congress.Secondly, although Section 103 of the law allowed until July, 1971, for Federal agenciesto take such measures as necessary to bring their authority and policies intocon- formity with the intent of the law, the law is less than clearas to its application to projects already in the pipeline. While it seems unrealistic to believe the Congress intended that environmentalstatements be prepared for projects which were in an advanced stage of developmenton January 1, 1970, regardless of degree to which resources had already been committed to the project, it is precisely that issue which is being thrashed out in the courts today.

On the first issue, that concerning the broad language of the law, the Council on Environmental Quality issued interim guidelinesfor implementing NEPA in April, 1970, and the U.S. Department ofTranspor- tation, of which FHWA is a part, issued guidelines applicable to DOT programs about six months later. DOT's guidelines said that my Federal action significantly affecting the environment is, by definition,a major Federal action. Although this definition appears to wash out a significant qualification of the law and thereby increase thescope of the law's application, upon examination, I thinkyou will agree that the effect of this provision of the guidelines did not materiallyalter the application of the law, but it did avoid potential argumentsover what constitutes a major action. The guidelines also defined significant affects upon th> anvironment.

It is in this area where there were honest differences of opinion within our organization as to the intent of Congress and Isuspect this is true of some of the other agencies represented at thismeeting today. 47

In effect, DOT's guidelines required environmental statements for a broader range of environmental impacts than those for which FHWA believed necessary. The following month FHWA issued instructions to its field organization. These were identified as interim guidelines (the Council on Environmental Quality has yet to issue its final implementing guidelines) which, in addition to reflecting the DOT guidelines, dealt with the second issue I discussed earlier--that of application of NEPA to projects in the pipeline. It may surprise some of you to learn that for major projects in urban areas, the time from the Leginning of project planning to the time of construction often covers a period of ten years or more. While that may defy rational explanation, it is nevertheless factual. So on January 1, 1970 when NEPA became law, there were projects nearing the end of the pipeline which for all practical purposes represented an irreversible commitment of resources.

FHWA elected to handle such projects, and in fact any project in the pipeline, in the following way. The interim guidelines FHWA issued in November, 1970 established what was then a prospective cut-off date of February 1, 1971. If on that date a project had advanced to the point of having received design approval (design approval is a major benchmark in the highway planning and design process), preparation of an environmental statement would not be required.Nevertheless such projects had to be re-evaluated to assure that the projects were developed in a manner that would minimize adverse environmental consequences.

The FHWA's interim guidelines established another major policy- - that of determining at which point in the highway planning and design process the requirements for processing an environmental statement are applicable.This point was designated as the corridor approval stage, the point (f,..11owing a public hearing) at which one highway corridor, from among .everal alternatives, is selected for further development. The iLt,:rim ,i;idelines required for all projects, the preparation of an envircn.,ento] statement or a "negative declaration," the latter being actually . pOsitive determination that a statement is unnecessary, if you don't mind my twisting the words around a bit.

Procedurally, FHWA division engineers have the authority to approve negative declarations and to approve draft environmental statements for circulation. Final statements, however, must be approved by a Regional Federal Highway Administrator, in our case in Chicago, and even that approval must be concurred in by the Office of the Secretary. This is the one exception I mentioned earlier when discussing delegation of authority. Except for NEPA and Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act--a section of law rimed at the preservation of parks, recreation areas, wildlife refuges and historic sites--the Secretary of Transportation has delegated to the Federal Highway Administrator all other authority to carry out the Federal-aid highway program. Since these exceptions are the only exceptions to the Administrator's authority, I believe they bear witness to the importance placed upon environmental consideration by Secretary Volpe.

If I have spent an inordinate amount of time in describing FHWA's organization and background in developing policies and procedures to 48

implement NEPA, it is only to set the stage for discussingsome of the problems we have had in the past two years. In the discussion that follows, I would like to link Section 4(1) of the DOT Act andNEPA together because, from our standpoint, the two are inmany ways inseparable. If you will recall in the earlier part ofmy talk I mentioned the number of FHWA employees in relationshipto the magnitude of highway program.Clearly, FHWA does not have the staff to perform environmental studies nor to prepare andprocess environmental statements. And even if we did, it would be a sharp break witha long-standing tradition of the Federal/State partnership in the highwayprogram were we to do so. So even though the language of NEPA is phrased interms of Federal requirements, preparation andcirculation of environmental statements for Federal-aid highway projects isa function performed by the State highway departments.

For the most part, we believe the States havedone a very good job in developing statements, given the suddennessof NEPA, the embryonic stage of implementing guidelines, and the general absenceof criteria by which to evaluate environmental impact. I might add parenthetically that the Wisconsin Division of Highways has beenidentified as one of the States doing a better than average job inpreparing statements. But while the States have done well overall, therewas initially some inertia to overcome--perhaps a feeling that FHWA didn't reallymean it when we indicated that we could not give project approvals untilthe environmental requirements had been satisfied, or, even if we didmean it, a feeling that FHWA was being unnecessarily bureaucratic inits implementation of the law. But I believe we are now beyond that initial periodof adjustment and if anything, recent court decisions would leadto a conclusion that perhaps FHWA was not strict enough in its applicationof the law- - particularly in regard to the retroactive effect ofthe law.

I mentioned briefly a little earlier the absenceof criteria by which to judge environmental impact. In the Federal-aid Highway Act of 1970 the Congress recognized that deficiencyand prescribed that environmental guidelines be promulgated and submittedto Congress by July, 1972. FHWA has recently circulated a draft version ofguidelines it developed. When finally adopted, these guidelines shouldassist in achieving a comprehensive evaluation ofenvironmental factors.

In terms of specific deficiencies in environmentalstatements, there initially was a tendency among some of theStates to emphasize the beneficial effects of highways and to minimizedescribing the adverse effects. In a sense, the statements were usedas a vehicle to justify prior decisions. I am sure that there was no deceptionintended. It is simply human nature to avoid a bad image. Of course, there are situations wherea project may cause considerable adverse environmental impact but inspite of the impact, it is in the public interest to proceed withthe project. With more experience in processing statements I believe theStates are increasingly "telling it like it is," accedingto the adage that you can't make an omelet without breaking an egg.

Perhaps another problem area has been that ofcommunication. The State Highway departments, like FHWA,are basically engineering organizations and to some extent the language ofstatements has been that of 49 one engineer talking to another. The statements, of course, are reviewed not only by engineers but by others in disciplines normally not exposed to engineering terminology. By the same token, some of the maps and drawings were perhaps not as good as they might have been. But again, the quality of statements has already shown signs of improve ment.

If 1 am beginning to sound a little critical of the State highway departments let me correct that impression.The highway departments, along with FHWA, have gone through and are going through a learning pro cess, groping for ways in which to properly carry out the mandate of Congress. If the word groping sounds a little unflattering, let me hasten to add that I don't think the term has limited application to highway agencies. I believe it applies equally to agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality, and I certainly mean no disrespect in making that observation.

One problem that 1 believe will continue to plague us for some time is that of having other agencies, and even the courts, understand the complexity of the highway program. I mentioned earlier that FHWA applies the requirement for submitting a statement at the corridor approval stage. Although specific project details are as yet undeveloped at this stage, review agencies have asked for design details which in some cases are not established until the preparation of contract plans is begun. Conversely, if we were to wait until the design details were known before processing a statement, both FHWA and the States run the risk of being accused of having already irreversibly committed ourselves to a project. One alternative would be to process two statements for each project at appropriate intervals. It is my understanding that one State is adopt ing such a practice and another is giving it serious consideration, but there is a consensus among most agencies that the task of preparing even one statement is so demanding of time and manpower that to require more than one statement would be unreasonable.

The States have also been criticized for piecemealing--that is, the submission of short project segments rather than submission of a statement covering a longer segment of highway.The criticism is that it is unfair to evaluate a short segment of highway when the immediately adjacent segment, the location of which is controlled by the first seg ment, may have significant environmental impact.Catching up with projects in the pipeline has been largely the cause of this criticism and the cause should vanish with the passage of time. However, it is not always an easy chore to select the best possible termini for a highway segment to be covered by an environmental statement. For example, in how many segments should the proposed 110mile 1-57 route between here and Milwaukee be covered?

Another problem that I will mention without much comment is manpower limitations. Those of you in the audience who represent Federal agencies are well aware of the Office of Management and Budget's directive to not only reduce manpower but to concurrently lower personnel grade levels as well, both objectives to be met in the face of new requirements such as NEPA. I know that many of the States are faced with similar budget con straints. Undlr such circumstances, if the full spirit and intent of

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NEPA is to be fulfilled, it can only be done at the expense of other desirable programs.

There is one conceptual area in implementing NEPA that has caused us some concern. The guidelines issued by the Council on Environmental Quality call for both a draft and final environmental statement. In contrast, NEPA simply requires "a statement." Our concern is that there is a tendency for some to think of the draft statement as a vehicle with which to initiate a coordination effort with agencies having expertise in environmental matters, and that the final statement would then indicate the results of that coordination effort. The gospel that FHWA has been preaching is that even the draft statement should more nearly represent the completion rather than the inception of the coordination effort. If we didn't already believe it, our experience in administering Section 4(f) of the DOT Act for several years convinced us of that view.I believe that the State highway departments are adopting that viewpoint more and more.

Another problem area, can best be described by a somewhat amusing incident here in Wisconsin. The State, in cooperation with city officials, is proposing to construct a bridge across the Sheboygan River at Sheboygan. City officials applied to the U.S. Coast Guard for a navigation permit and submitted with their application an environmental statement prepared by the Wisconsin Division of Highways.The Coast Guard circulated the statement to other agencies including FHWA's office in Madison. At the same time FHWA's own procedures precluded our approval of the project until the State processed a statement. To avoid such obvious duplicative efforts to fulfill the same requirement of law, we have established a "lead agency" concept whereby the Federal agency having the principal interest in a project (FHWA in this example) processes an environmental statement. Agencies having a secondary interest then accept the lead agency's statement. Nevertheless it is interesting to note the differences among Federal agencies in the way draft statements are circulated for comment. The Coast Guard handles this chore for its applicants whereas under FHWA procedures, the State highway departments perform this function. This results in the peculiar situation of the Wisconsin Division of Highways having two procedures for fulfilling the requirements of NEPA--one for projects utilizing Federal- aid highway funds, and one for projects requiring a navigation permit but financed without Federal funds.

Of all the problems I have discussed, I suppose the problem of greatest concern to us has to do with the trend of recent court decisions concerning the application of NEPA. In the late summer of 1971, FHWA issued what we call a Policy and Procedure Memorandum (PPM). It super- seded the interim guidelines I discussed earlier. Based upon the experience gained in working with the interim guidelines, the PPM aimed at correcting some of the deficiencies I have described and it clarified the retroactive application of NEPA.

Another significant change between the interim guidelines and the PPM concerns the type of projects or, more accurately, the type of environmental impacts for which statements are required. You will recall that earlier I mentioned some differences of opinion on this issue.Our

t,) 51 operating experience and the experience of the agencies reviewing environmental statements, demonstrated that we simply were applying the requirements of NEPA too broadly. The PPM, prepared in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality, thus contains language which should reduce the number of statements processed by FHWA. Numerically, FHWA has been processing statements at a rate of approximately 1,800 per year nationwide. We now expect this rate to drop to about 500 per year.

But just when it appeared that with the passage of time since January 1,1970, the dust was beginning to settle and we now had a good working document with which to implement NEPA, some very disturbing court decisions began to emerge. In effect, the c,urts are saying that FHWA does not have the authority to exempt from a.,,,lication those projects which received design approval prior to Fell oiry, 1971. Perhaps it is too early to speculate on the impact of these court decisions (some of these cases are still pending in appeal actions), but we can't help but believe that the court's interpretation of NEPA is unrealistic, or if it is not, then the legislation is in need of revision. Just last month here in Wisconsin a project already under construction was ordered to be stopped by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin on the basis that an environmental statement was required and had not been prepared. Estimates of the cost of delay to the contractor, costs which must ultimately be borne by the taxpayers, have been reported as several thousand dollars per day. The plaintiffs in this case are five individual citizens who were not required to post bond by the court.

There are some who maintain that in any case of doubt as to whether an environmental statement for a project is needed (and remember the language of NEPA is broad and the applicability is unclear), an environmental statement should be prepared. But as holders of a public trust, I believe we would be derelict in our responsibilities if we blindly required environmental statements without due regard for the costs involved. And by costs I mean hardships to those who live in the paths of highways and must endure prolonged periods of uncertainty, and the denial of fast, safe and efficient highways to the public, as well as actual dollar costs for preparing environmental statements or for construction delays.

Not only have the recent court decisions been disturbing, but the number of court cases in which Federal highway officials have been named as defendants is increasing at an alarming rate. Last year no less than twenty-four court suits were initiated.Moreover, we believe that we are seeing only the first phase of legal actions--those which are based upon non-compliance with Federal law or procedures. We anticipate that the second phase will consist of legal challenges to the procedures themselves, or to the adequacy of environmental statements. While admittedly it is more difficult for plaintiffs to successfully challenge the adequacy of statements as compared to establishing non-compliance with law or procedures, it behooves us to prepare statements that will withstand any such challenge. 52

In summary, after two years of labor and learning, weare a little torn and tattered and in some cases perhaps a little bloodied, but we have survived. It is unfortunate that in some instances individuals, for totally selfish reasons, have used NEPA solely asa vehicle by which to stop projects with which they disagreed.But on balance, and once the projects now in the pipeline are completed, I believe that NEPA will help us to produce an even better product for the public. At the very least, fulfilling the requirements of NEPA should help to convince the public that what we are doing is in the best public interestor, failing that, it should at least establish that full considerationwas given to environmental factors.

Certainly the Federal Highway Administration endorsesa policy of preserving and enhancing the environment. Our policies, even without prodding Federal legislation, have reflected that goal formany years, Our only hope is that we will be permitted to pursue that noble goal as reasonable men. We have none but the public interest at stake. 53

THE U. S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

Donald E. Lawyer Planning Division, Chief of Engineers Department of the Army Washington, D.C.

It certainly gives me a great deal of pleasure to discuss the accom- plishments, problems, and frustrations we in the Corps of Engineers have experienced in the two years the National Environmental Policy Act (Public Law 91-190) has been in existence. But, first, let me preface my remarks with the thought that we are still learning and I expect to gain much more information and insight on environmental impacts at this very timely conference than I will be giving.

To begin with I might explain a little about our missions, programs, organization, and size. The Civil Works program of the Corps of Engineers concerns the planning, development, and management of the nation's water resources.Our major programs fall into categories of flood control- - reservoirs as well as local protection projects; navigation--locks and dams as well as waterways, harbors, and channels; beach erosion and hurricane protection projects; emergency operations; and issuing of permits under the 1899 WA on waste discharges effecting navigation. We have a civilian force of about 29,000 employees with 280 officers. This force is crganized by Divisions (11) and Districts (39) with boundaries determined by major river basins and drainages, with a small headquarters staff.

Our annual budget for planning, construction, operation and maintenance, and management for water resource development, averages about $1 1/4 billion. At the present time we have approximately 300 studies underway, about 270 projects under construction, 360 reservoir lakes in operation, and are maintaining hundreds of miles of navigation channels and waterways.

We in the Corps feel that we have made a very vigorous as well as con- scientious effort to fully implement the letter and the spirit of the National Environmental Policy Act; comply with the "Guidelines" as promulgated by the Council on Environmental Quality; and comply with other administrative policies and procedures.

We issued instructions regarding NEPA to our field offices beginning in March of 1970, with the first major contribution being our Engineer Circular in September 1970, which gave guidance on procedures for handling and preparation of environmental statements. This guidance was further refined as an Engineer Regulation and published in the Federal Register on June 11, 1971 for public comment and I am happy to report this Engineer Regulation has been revised in light of the comments received and is now at the printer.

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I feel that I should define for you how the Corps views the environmental statement and its relationship to our planning and decision-making process. All of our projects are developed thru a complex planning and evaluation process with a great deal of coordination with other Federal agencies, State and local agencies, and the general public.This process results in a project report which reflects all aspects (engineering, economic, and environment) studied and evaluated. This is the decision document.

We have made environmental considerations a deliberatepart of each of our planning studies. Our planning procedures have been modified so that environmental aspects keep in step with the engineering,economic, and social well-being aspects of the study. Consideration of the environment is not separate and apart from the planning of the project, but Is completely integrated. The environmental statement, as required by Section 102(2)(C) of NEPA, is a summarization of the environmental effects and impacts considered in the course of the study. The EIS is not the decision document. Generally the EIS is based on data and information developed for the study and contained in the project report.Rarely will new and original data be developed for the EIS.

At this point, I would like to bring out one aspect thathas become very important in the last couple of years--that is public participation. We have always worked with the public in the conduct ofour studies, holding public meetings, etc., but now a deliberate participationprogram, including numerous public meetings, small group work shops,information newsletters, and other methods to generate public interest, isa part of the project planning process. As with any new program, we are having our problems and frustrations of implementation, but they are being resolved.The response we have had so far indicates that the public is enthused with this program of public participation.

So much for generalities on our program, now what about our environmental statements? To date we have filed over 414 statements, 265 final and 149 draft statements. Some of these are quite good and others not so good, especially those we prepared and filed in the middle and last half of 1970. At that time, we had a job of communicating toour field planners just what was meant by the law, the Council "Guidelines"and also what was expected from them. Now I can say our consistency is getting better and the overall quality of the statements isa great deal better. In fact, since the Council's "Proposed Guidelines"were issued in February, final in April, and our amplified guidance in June,there has been a marked improvement in coverage, content, depth, and applicability of Corps statements.

One of the frustrating points became very apparent in early 1970-- "How to get on top of the workload." As you know, NEPA applied to all Federal actions that significantly effect the environment,not just actions that were initiated after January 1970.When NEPA was signed, the Corps of Engineers already had environmental oriented staff,such as fishery and game biologist, limnologist, foresters, agronomists,recreation resource planners and some engineers who werevery attuned to the environment and the effect of our works upon it. This is the staff that felt the heat and the push to develop adequate environmentalstatements. 55

I would hazard to guess that when NEPA was passed we needed to prepare in excess of 2,000 environmental statements, just to catch up and become current. Because of this huge backlog the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) allowed us to set up a three-year schedule to complete EIS for all continuing construction projects and complete projects in an operation and maintenance status. We are vigorously working on this backlog in order to become current.

In the last two years we have taken numerous steps to increase our in-house environmental staff capability by hiring new staff with life and natural science backgrounds and education, but most of these are young inexperienced men that need some on-the-job training to become fully productive. We have taken and are continuing to take actions to train our existing staff through work shops, seminars, university short courses, and granting leave of absences for further college education. But all these actions will take time to obtain maximum results, so we still are faced with a real workload problem. However, there is a light gleaming at the far end of the tunnel.

Currently, we are developing additional guidelines on environmental effects and impacts giving careful analysis to environmental matrix system developed by Dr. Luna Leopold of the U. S. Geological Survey and to the weighting system developed by the Battelle Institute for the Bureau of Reclamation. Results from on-going and complete environmental studies, consultant reports, these other evaluation schemes, and court decisions are continually being evaluated to improve our knowledge and methods of evaluation. Currently instructions are being prepared so that our field planners can develop an "atlas" of environmental things.To begin with this "atlas" will be very gross and dependent upon the input and knowledge of many organizations and individuals, but will result in a working document of considerable assistance to our planners. We are also developing guidelines on evaluation and assessment. The 1970 RE.HA requires that such guidelines be prepared and promulgated by 1 July 1972.

We are also relying on consultants and universities to provide us with specific environmental inputs and assessments for our studies. I feel very confident that the projects presently being studied will incorporate adequate environmental considerations of alternative courses of actions as well as the accepted plan, will fully comply with NEPA, and will have public acceptance. Our planning process will insure this, but it will take more dollars and more time.

We are experiencing our greatest difficulty with projects that "are in the pipeline"--that is, those projects authorized and under construction prior to the enactment of NEPA.On these projects the opportunity to study and evaluate a full range of alternatives are much more limited. However, to the maximum extent feasible, alternative solutions and opportunities for environmental enhancement, preservation, restoration, and mitigation are being investigated and incorporated into the project to the maximum extent feasible. On a good many of these projects, construction is well underway and in some instances almost complete. But we are conducting various studies to assist us in implementing further actions to enhance the quality of the environment as it relates to the particular project.

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To highlight how increased emphasis on environmental considerations has been incorporated into Corps projects and resulting in changes, I would like to cite a few examples:

Reviewed and changed many reservoir operation schedules to enhance fish spawning, hold higher water levels during the recreation season, minimize late summer exposure of mud flats, and provide additional flows for downstream water quality.

Incorporation in all construction contracts of environmental protection specifications with specific safeguards on environmental degradation related to the construction activities.

Incorporation in leases, licenses, and concession agreements of stringent conditions regarding environmental quality standards and activities that may degrade the quality of the environment.

Hold pre-construction conferences with the contractor to review and discuss environmental aspects of the work, the plant layout, location of construction roads, and living areas to minimize their impact on the environment.

A scenic river development plan has been developed for the Hatchie River in conjunction with the U. S. Soil Conserva- tion Service and the Tennessee Department of Conservation

Specifications for top bank land clearing in connection with Mississippi River revetment work have been revised to minimize the amount of right-of-way needed and the number of trees cut.

The survey report on the local protection pro.;ect. at Fremont, Ohio contemplated a drop structure for energy dissipation. Pre-construction planning determined that a riprapped friction channel would serve the same purpose and would permit passing of spawning fish runs. Provisions were also made to minimize stream profile disturbances in an attempt to retain to the maximum feasible extent the existing pool-riffle complex.

Duck Creek Channel Improvement Project, Texas, has been modified to include special design for enhancement of the channel, reflecting pools, esthetics, and greenbelt trails. These types of features are being incorporated into the design of San Antonio, Elm Fork, and Fort Worth Floodway channel projects.

Projects Modified.

(1) Big Walnut Reservoir, Indiana.Moved dam site.

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(2) Oakley Reservoir, Illinois. Elimination of downstream channel substitution of greenbelts.

(3) Morrison Creek, California. Provision of open space to save unique wildlife habitat.

(4) La Farge Reservoir, Minnesota. Installation of multiple-level outlet which will create a new trout fishery downstream.

(5) Red River Reservoir, Kentucky. Moved dam five miles downstream to preserve a valuable and unique scenic gorge.

(6) Tennessee Colony Dam, Texas. Moved site upstream to preserve valuable hardwood forest, new penal farm, and a major wildlife area.

(7) Columbus Lock and Dam, Mississippi.Moved dam site upstream to protect valuable paleontological site. Corps has recommended the site be registered as a National Nature Area.

We have also terminated projects.

(1) Buffalo Bayou, Texas. Channel modifications to increase discharge capacity.

(2) Carrabelle to St. Marks River, Florida. Part of the Gulf Intra-Coastal Waterway. Project would create significant adverse environmental impacts and effects on the Alligator Harbor - St. James Island area and the long-term environmental loss would be far greater than the benefits derived from the project.

(3) Jack and Simmerly Sloughs, California. Channelization and levees to protect land periodically flooded.

In closing I might mention that we have having our share of court litigation. Most of the 13 cases in litigation involve projects that have been under construction for some time, 6 of which have been stopped by court action to date. The only permanent injunction so far is on Gillham Dam, Arkansas, where further construction of the project is stopped until an environmental statement satisfactory to the court is filed. We have now completed studies and prepared our statement and filed it with the Council on Environmental Quality. The Court now will have to see if it is satisfactory and meets the courts objections.

With the high backlcg of statements to prepare (for projects authorized and in planning or under construction) we had to make decisions on where to expend the limited resources available to us and prepare statements on the most critical projects. We evaluated the projects in our program and started with those known or felt to have serious concerns or significant environmental impacts especially where proposed actions were such as to 58 preclude the possible adoption of alternative plans. One that we missed was Cooper Lake and Channels Project, Texas. We were unaware of any unresolved conflicts until suit was brought by the Texas Committee for Natural Resources. As no environmental statement had been filed, the court issued a preliminary injunction stopping all construction work pending filing of an environmental statement. A contract for environmental studies has been awarded to East Texas University to form the basis of an environmental statement.

This briefly is a capsule recap of our two years of labor and learning and what has been to the Corps of Engineers a very challenging period. Other Environmental Impact Perspectives i

C5 UWCB: ITS ENVIRONMENTAL FOCUS AND IMPACT

Edward W. Weidner Chancellor University of Wisconsin-Green day

:we years 1 the "decade of the environment" ire behind u-. ltasoite ali t. . eff rt t;tat has been expended on develod;%. a concern for environmental ve st:1.1 encounzer wide segments of the population that believe that eavironmc val dtgrodation is the result of a few careless engineers and a few ,11ougntless industries. Milltons of dollars and millions of man-hours later, we hive yet to develop an adecinate definition of environ-ental quality 1:t alnne an adequate commitment to enviromienta) ethic.

In 1966, laanning iegan for a new institution, the Cnive.rsity of Wisconsin-Green nay, The planners concluded tuat higher education was far too aloof and far too unconcerned w:th the major problems of the verld and the scnst of social respe. :'1,itity of graduates. A u"iversity- wide focus on a sie:Aficarc problem u)uld help avoid these pitfalls. Among the major prol,Inms of the world, man and his environment seemed tn merit apeeial attention, for rea-:"c so obvious that they need not be o,olined here.

Thus it was that in the fall of 1969 the University of Wisconsin- Green Bay opened a new university with a total institution -Fite emphasis on man and his environment. Chemistry, biology, sociology, business administration, art, literature, and other fields and professions were to be taught in such a way that their application to the problem of man and his environment would be highlighted. Graduates with any of these specialties would be better able to understaud their own social responsibilities. Through general education courses, an environmental awareness and ethic would be developed whf.ch would be strengthened by strong off- campus experiences with communiuy environmental problems. Hopefully, all graduates would make contribut!ons in their respective fields in regard to environmental matters. In addition, understandin" and experiLace in regard to one major social problem might well lead to an enhanced concern for other social problems.

There would be no excuse at the new university for blamiag a few engineers or a few industries for a problem that was ne'Acrswide mil for which every individual was in part responsible. There vuld bn no room for the sophistry of pretending that some men were innout bystanders. Acceptance of social responsibility was explicit in the ncademic plan and the time was now.This acceptance had to be by all people, from all kinds of disciplines and professional aspirations.

Because of our educational commitment at UWGB, we have naturally tried to create as model an environment as possible at our new campus

66 62 along the shores of Green Bay. We began by developing our academic plan and our physical plan, and then marrying the two.This was accomplished only after considerable study and deliberation. And yet during the first two years of operations at our new campus, 1969-71, it became apparent that these planning documents were not adequate for all time, nor were they self implementing.And the logic behind them was not necessarily evident to each newcomer.

Under these circumstances, and upon faculty advice, we developed our own Environmental Impact Board paralleling in some ways the environmental impact procedures of the Federal government and a few states.

The Board holds regular meetings, frequently weekly, and issues an excellent set of minutes. These minutes are widely distributed and read with care. The Board can advise the Chancellor, any other senior administrator, and even a faculty-student committee. If it chooses to do so, the Board can inquire into any environmental problem on its own initia- tive. On the other hand, all committees or officers of the University carrying out projects of any major importance for the University environment, must submit a statement of environmental impact to the Board in advance, and the Board must have an opportunity of setting forth its views. While the conclusions and recommendations of the Board are purely advisory, it is already apparent that this advice will almost invariably be followed. Quite naturally there has been a phasing- in problem in the short run, since many projects were underway at the time the Board was established. But for future projects, the influence of the Board is impressive.

I am reviewing the Environmental Impact Board of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in some detail not because it is quite distinctive for an institution such as a university - which it is. Rather, I am reviewing its experience primarily because we believe that UWGB has eacountered in the last few months, in capsule form, the same kinds of problems that underlie environmental impact analysis at the federal or state levels.

For those who take environmental impact analysis seriously, there are a series of administrative problems.One of these is the type of statement and analysis required before the Board reviews a pr000sed project. It is not easy to define the kind of statement that is adequate in terms of presenting the possible environmental impact of a project. Secondly, the time and energy of personnel, and the dollars that they represent, are a consideration.It is obvious that an organization that waits for an environmental impact analysis cannot proceed with the same dispatch and the same short-range economy of effort as an organization that does not worry about such things.The timetable of organizational effort is effected by environmental impact analysis.However, the welfare of society is a long-range, not a short-range matter, and it has become apparent we must as a society afford the expense of environmental impact analysis. Thirdly, it takes time for administrators and clien- teles to get to feel comfortable with such a procedure. There may be fears that an Environmental Impact Board will be unreasonable, or that someone may try to "hang" a particular project through this means. Indeed, these fears sometimes may be justified. And it is well to

67 63 remember that not all well-intentioned persons will come to the same conclusions with the same data in hand. Still, it is better to have analysis objectively set forth, than to proceed by rumor or by tour de force.

However, far more fundamental concerns have surfaced in UWGB's experience with environmental impact analysis. Anyone who has engaged seriously in such analysis for very long is confronted with the fundamental question, "What is an impact - what is an unhappy or undesirable environmental impact?" No one can answer this question without reference to long-range plans for the use by people of the water, air, and/or land affected by a project. For the most part, such long-range plans do not exist. Existing planning and zoning is both spotty and frequently short- run. Developing plans for long-range use tends to run counter to accepted ideas of private property. It implies restricted access to the natural environment. It is difficult politically. But unless such plans are made, we will not be able to answer fully the question of what a desirable impact or an undesirable impact might be.

There is another problem in identifying an environmental impact. Many think of an impact as being purely bio-physical. Apparently their view is that there is an undesirable impact if in some way a project infringes on an assumed original state of nature.Others feel that an impact is undesirable if it in some way changes existing land use. These are views of impact which are entirely too restrictive.There are legitimate new uses of resources as well as legitimate old uses. There is a socio-cultural environmental element as well as bio-physical. A future plan for use of an area including the socio-cultural use as well as the bio-physical is essential before measuring and determining the importance and desirability of a particular impact.

For example, at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay we have developed three use areas within our circular 1,000 acre planning area- - an intensively used, roadless academic center section, a peripheral arboretum, and, in between, a less intensive use area including vehicular access, parking lots, playing fields, and social and housing facilities. Until. the University has defined all three of these areas both in bio- physical and socio-cultural terms, the Environmental Impact Board of UWGB cannot make effective judgements on environmental impact, nor can the responsible committees or officers of the University.

Let us not deceive ourselves. Neither a well thought-out master development plan nor an environmental impact board will bring magic consensus on the desirability of a project from an environmental perspective. There is no one "best" solution to man and his environment. All that can be asked of any of us is that we proceed on the basis of long-range plans, environmentally considered, and that through environmental impact analysis each project is tested for its appropriateness in regard to such plans.

To return to UWGB: the intensively used, roadless academic center section of our plan is farthest along. Still, it has been criticized by those who would prefer every building to have a view of the Bay. (Perhaps a kind of throwback to the picture window of our living rooms,

68 64 or strip zoning!) The peripheral arboretum has recently been defined in detail, also. Still, some students have objected to the removal of an old barn and farmhouse that would obviously have conflicted with he naturalizing of an essential segment of the periphery. The center circie in our planning area is the least developed conceptually. Even so, there is little consistency in the environmental advice we receive in regard to it.

No, we who are concerned with environmental impact analysis are not launched on a search for a new general will, presided over by a haughty and arrogant new elite. Rather, we are engaged in an attempt to be environmentally aware by making impact analyses and to permit interest citizens and groups to have their views considered before making decisions with important environmental consequences. We must remember that there will seldom be only one desirable environmental alternative--on occasion there may be none--and there seldom will be total agreement among those highly concerned.

Thus it is that UWGB has a direct operational interest in the outcome of this Conference, as well as a broad institutional interest in the proceedings stemming from its focus on man and his environment. We look forward to cooperating with Federal, State and private agencies in their planning and development efforts in environmental impact analysis. We hope we can learn from you at the same time we share our experiences with you. 65

A SYSTEMS APPROACH TO ENVIMI4MENTAL IMPACT

John Armstrong Director Sea Grant Program University of Michigan

Conceptually, NEPA represents a major step forward for the govern- ing of our society and the rational use of our national resources.

1. It establishes a national policy of environmental concern against which all governmental actions can be measured. With the establishment of this policy, it is no longer possible to justify unwise or potentially unwise projects solely on the narrow grounds that they are "necessary" of "of public benefit" to small segments of this populace.

2. Federal projects are more open to review, by the public, and by other federal agencies, before they are implemented. For under the best of conditions no single agency, no matter how dedicated, can identify all of the possible alternatives to meet project objectives. Understandably, agencies are reluctant to wait for a general consensus of permissibility before starting a project. But through the procedures of the Section 102 impact statements, some good alternatives have been suggested, and some projects of probable high adverse impact have been altered or dropped.

3. Particularly through the courts, the procedural requirements of NEPA have expanded the ability of the public to have some say in what actions its government takes. Public participation in government, particularly at the federal level, remains a complex problem. The provisions of NEPA have allowed some degree of public entrance into the federal decision-making process while hopefully excluding uninformed disruption of federal activities.

4. Perhaps the greatest virtue of NEPA, and the reason for viewing this act as a major advance in the governance of our society, is that it reflects a move towards a more systematic approach to governmental decision-making. It is perhaps the first major national recognition, that, in a modern complex society of millions of people, all elements are interconnected. NEPA is one of the first challenges to a historically incremental and fragmented national environmental resource policy.

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However, it is clear that NEPA, while good, is not without its problems, particularly when considering the complex problems of the Great Lakes, NEPA, while a significant first step, may still be insufficient.

Considering the experienceand background of those in attendance tonight, and the subject matterof this conference, I will not take the time to list all the proceduraland conceptual problems connected with NEPA. However, I would like tomention a few, either because they are of particular importance to theGreat Lakes, or because they cannot be over-emphasized.

1. One problem which must be solved if the Great Lakes as a natural system, is to be successfully managed, is how to build a stronger working relationship with Canada.

At the present time there is no formal Canadian input into the Section 102 impact assessment process. Canada has been informed that they are welcome to submit any information which they feel pertains to various United States projects, and that they have the same powers as any other sovereign state in the U.S. courts. In actuality, Canada is reduced to the level of submitting diplomatic notes. The International Joint Commission needs more ability to deal directly with counterparts, not at just high levels.

There are several possible solutions to this problem. The formation of a bilateral court to hear disputes over environmental matters is one. Successful completion of the treaty and expansion of the International Joint Commission will be helpful. But no matter what the solution, Canada should be permitted a stronger voice. In addition, we must find methods that are effective at less than the treaty or diplomatic level. Research and information gathering is restrained by archaic and binding diplomatic procedures. We need to have more freedom to deal directly with our Canadian counterparts.

2. CEQ. In spite of high professional quality, the Council on Environmental Quality is understaffed and under- financed. Obviously, this problem is one shared by many federal and state agencies. However, CEQ faces another problem which, while not unheard of in other agencies, is somewhat unique.

CEQ's primary function is to serve as advisor to the President on broad policy matters and to undertake a general review of agency performance. But some segments of the public have demanded that it takes on the additional function of environmental ombudsman in relation to federal and state agencies. Often the public feels that CEQ does or should have the power to demand impact statements and to stop projects if the assessment is negative. This is not its function, it is not properly designed to carry out this function, and as a result, it is in a serious conflict between serving the President and serving the public. One result of this situation may have been to shake the public's faith in government and to obscure some of the real potentials of NEPA. It is interesting to 67 look at the number of 102 statements over 2000--one becomes concerned about the depth in which such critically important statements can be reviewed.

3. Agencies and information. It has become clear that one of the greatest problems in meeting the requirements and objectives of NEPA is that of insufficient information. The basic concept of NEPA is to increase the amount and type of information which an agency considers before it implements a program.

In its first annual report, CEO stated that:

The federal government need no longer be in the position of trying to repair damage to the environment after the damage has been done because the relevant factors were not considered at the time of the decision.'

Unfortunately, this is more a statement of desired outcome than fact.

One of the basic questions which has yet to be satisfactorily answered is just how an agency is to determine what the "relevant factors" are for a specific problem.What are the performance measures that best describe a particular environmental problem? The executive, legislative, and judicial branches all need a detailed procedure which could be used to arrive at this type of determination.The need for such a procedure is evidenced in the fact that many of the debates which have occurred over Section 102 statements, such as that for the Alaskan Pipeline, have centered around the question of what a sufficient statement consists of. Sufficiency may indeed be a function of the type of resource issue considered.

But even if this question can be resolved, there remains the very real problem of developing, within agencies, the ability to obtain and effectively use more relevant information.NEPA by itself can never meet its stated objectives until it is augmented by tools and procedures for dealing with such information.

BASIC CONCEPTS

Broadening and Comprehensiveness of NEPA. Congressional interest in technology assessment has been growing in recent years. Proposed requirements of such assessments are similar to the environmental impact statements of NEPA.

The basic premise of the proposed office of technology assessment or similar arrangements is that technology is affecting not only the natural environment, but also our social and economic systems. I think that it is instructive, when considering the possible future of NEPA, to look at the materials gathered by the House Subcommittee of Science, Research and Development. From these studies of the need for technology assessment and how to institutionalize it, it becomes clear that technology assessment is an advanced type of environmental impact statement;

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and I would like to propose that until the two processes are somehow combined or related, we will make only limited progress in our ability to eliminate undesirable consequences of federal, state, and private actions.

Technology assessment is expensive. Initial attempts at technology assessment, carried out by the National Academy of Science, and others, indicate that even if assessments are held to a one-year time period, which in itself can be difficult, projected costs of each assessment will be in the $200,000 to $600,000 price range--meaningful environmental assessment may prove to be as or more expensive.

A number of executive branch reports have suggested that technology assessment and environmental impact assessment be combined, and be required of all executive agencies.Considering the personnel, money, and time constraints already encountered in attempting to deal with NEPA, there is no way under present conditions that each agency can carry out this type of assessment. Furthermore, as was pointed out in a 1970 publication by the White House National Goals Research Staff, assessment is of limited value without the guidance of some national growth policy. Assessment can either be used to limit or encourage growth, and different information will be required, depending upon which direction one wishes to take. With both technology assessment and environmental impact statements, there is no explicit indication of what is to be done with the information derived from assessments. I think it is fair to say that most people think that it would be a good idea to have detailed information on the potential results of a proposed activity. But there is in many cases considerable reluctance or inability to do anything with this information once it is obtained.

SUMMARY

Perhaps the most serious problem facing NEPA is that it is attempting to bring about solutions which cannot occur unless there are further changes in the goals and values of the nation, and of individual agencies.

However, the very existence of NEPA indicates broad-scale changes in the nation's goals. Just imagine how NEPA would have fared in 1872, or 1932, or even 1952.

NEPA and similar legislation is designed to provide decision-makers with more information, if they wish to use it. Historically, there has been a resistance to perceive the need for such information, and to incorporate it into the decision-making process. NEPA is helpfng change this. If all of the "relevant factors" were considered before a decision was made, then social, political, economic, and environmental factors would all receive equal consideration. This is beyond the limits of accepta- bility within our system.

The question of environmental information is basic to the NEPA concept. It is also a key factor in our entire philosophy of environmental management. It has long been recognized by concerned decision- makers that information is the key to successful management, and without adequate information, decisions are made either arbitrarily, or by invalid 69 interpretation of environmental needs.Our lack of information about the environment and its behavior under man's influence is due to two very obvious causes: (1) our inability to gather together and interpret existing data about the environment (e.g., to convert existing data into usable information), and (2) a basic gap in our knowledge about certain environmental phenomena, regardless of certain available data or information.

This lack of complete information or understanding is of course, the basis for the so-called conservative approach, where we take action based perhaps more on an intuitive feeling about environmental damage caused or that which could be caused by a project or activity.

This, in turn, has led to a trend towards stronger and more centralized authority over environmental matters, for if we are to take a conservative approach to environmental management, considerable authority is required. Contrast this with the situation where a good understanding of a particular environmental problem is at hand and where a solid data base is available to support that understanding. In this situation the requirement for authority may be lessened, by means of existing mechanisms and institutions, using the more sufficient information and knowledge.

My point here is that I believe, our society has reacted to a lack of information about environmental problems by creating more authority to deal with the problems, i.e., to implement a conservative approach. I think this is justified, to a certain point.

I believe we are now close to that point. I would suggest that there is now a temptation to continue the creation of authority, parti-

cularly centralized authority, when perhaps there is no further need. I believe that the pendulum should swing back, just a bit perhaps; but we should now return to providing more and better information to the existing environmental management structure. In the Great Lakes our state agencies have, in most cases, viable organization, sufficient laws, and probably enough authority to deal with most environmental management situations. (I would exempt the problem of land use and development from that category.)

What the existing state agencies need now are more men, more money, and better information upon which to base decisions and formulate plans. Let me quickly point out that I would qualify this line of reasoning by including the variable, time. For information must be provided in sufficient time to have a positive contribution to environmental management. This, of course, leads back to a philosophy of conservation, for in some areas there indeed may not be sufficient time to generate adequate information to satisfactorily resolve an environmental issue--e.g., where there is a present indication of irreversible environmental damage occurring- - so that we are never free of subjective decision-making about environmental issues.

Another factor that I haven't mentioned which is related to information is that of a lack of information about what the real desires and needs of the public are regarding environmental matters.All we know now is that the public responds to specific issues, but we know little or nothing about their real short- and long-term desires other than everyone seems to want a "good" environment. What is good? And how much are people willing to pay to obtain and sustain a good environment? This dimension of our lack of information as is the case involving technological information also influences our philosophical approach to environmental management. Many projects and programs are designed with the motto "The Most Good for the Most People." This very virtuous but rather meaningless approach leaves much to be desired with respect to use and protection of some of our limited resource systems, particularly in the Great Lakes. An example is the development of the coastal and shoreland area of the Lakes.Many of these fragile areas, if they are to be retained at even a fraction of their natural state, cannot possibly be developed or used by all user classes for multipurpose activities. There must be a recognition of the fact that most natural systems cannot be "all things to all people." But faced with a sometimes complete lack of information about what people really want, agencies have been forced to try and cover all bases.

The environment is still seen by many as something to be exploited by man (resources vs. commodity).There is still general failure to recognize that the complex societal goals of our system are totally dependent upon a viable biosphere, and that the natural system is not only influenced by, but also exerts a strong influence upon, these same goals. A good example of the effects of a lack of good information about the environment is found in the current controversy over the so-called Muskic Bill recently passed in the Senate and now being considered in the House. This legislation will have significant impact in the Great Lakes as it will across the nation.

Much of the debate over this legislation centers around the proposed change from water quality standards to effluent standards. Arguments over the merits and deficiencies of each type of standard are academic, and in my opinion ridiculous.Until we develop sufficient understanding and information linking effluent discharge to water quality levels, we will need standards for both.At the present time there is no scienti- fically acceptable information or methodology yielding the effect that a specific effluent will have on ambient water quality levels. In our limnological modeling program in Sea Grant we have made considerable progress towards this end, but by no means are we, or any other reputable research establishment, ready to determine standards.

Thus the arguments are over the wrong issue; the real issue is whether the total amount of pollutants entering the national system need to be reduced. At this time a conservative rationale is required. I believe we do need higher degrees of waste removal, but this is not based on sufficient information.

SOLUTIONS

In looking for solutions to these and other problems associated with NEPA, I think that it is important to emphasize moving beyond NEPA's rather limited boundaries. Three elements which I would like to stress are (1) the expansion of our definition of environment, thus increasing the concept of assessment; (2) the development of sufficient tools to 71 allow the necessary assessment; and (3) the means of increasing the involvement of the general public at a time when "experts" and government are involved in more and more far-reaching environmental decisions.

(1) A first step in moving beyond NEPA might be to establish some form of citizen review outside of the executive and legislative branches, and outside of government bureamracy. The Hart-McGovern Bill (House Bill 3055] is one possible alternative. This bill is based upon Michigan's innovative legislation which allows Michigan citizens to bring suit against anyone causing environmental damage.Passage of this legislation would allow citizen review of activities affecting the environment. While such a linkage to NEPA must be considered more a court of last appeals than a solution, it could easily be a permanent part of the nation's attempt to lessen the adverse impact of its activities.The obvious objection to such a step is that it might breed a crippling number of nuisance suits. This, however, has not been the case so far in the State of Michigan.

The question of citizen involvement is far from simple. What is citizen involvement? Who are the citizens that would be involved? Students come to me from student groups, representing youth and the environment. But do they really represent youth? The same applies to our whole society. What do people really want?

(2) Many suggestions have already been made for various forms of reorganization within the federal government. Perhaps one of the most interesting suggestions, if only because it has been around for thirty years, is for the formation of a Department of Natural Resources. Another possibility is to place CEQ or some other organization between the executive agency and the office of management and the budget. This organization could act as a clearinghouse for impact statements, feeding the Lgencies information upon request, checking with other agencies that might be affected, opening the statement to public review, and certifying that the required procedure had been carefully followed. This certification could be a prerequisite for budgetary consideration. There are many alternative reorganization patterns. The reason for considering some form of reorganization is, that until formal and informal linkages have been established between all parties who can affect the environment, the ability to obtain any environmental objective is limited. The problem in undertaking such reorganizations is that all too often the same thinking, the same approaches, and the same results continue, only now under a new name. And often the original objective of reorganization is lost in considerations of administrative or of efficiency or budgetary constraints.

(3) It is clear that one goal of NEPA was to reduce the adverse impacts resulting from agency activities. But the Section 102 impact statement requirements of NEPA place an unfair burden upon the agencies insofar as they were not given sufficient tools to develop the statements.

No matter what institutional arrangements are established to insure that all relevant factors are considered, they are bound to fail unless at the same time an effort is made to develop better methods and tools for determining what all the relevant factors are, making these available to those who propose an activity. 76 72

1 would like to present to you, as people who could play a major role in implementing it, a concept which we have been developingas part of the University of Michigan Sea Grant Program.

Before stabilizing the water level of Lake Michigan, before channel- ing all of the sewage of southeast Michigan into Lake Erie, firstwe must emphasize the capability to properly assess these and otheractivities. I do not assume to have a complete definition of whata proper assessment would entail. It should certainly contain a consideration of both the adverse and the beneficial impacts of each activityupon the social, cultural, economic, technological, and ecologicalsystems.

I suggest that the Great Lakes coastal zone systempresents not only an ideal opportunity for a long-range cooperative research effort to establish the capability to undertake comprehensive analysis of resource utilization activities but represents one of the most rapidly developing resource subsystems of the Great Lakes. Social, economic, and political values will always play a major part in man'suse of natural resources. But if, as indicated in NEPA, our nation wishes to reduce the number of adverse impacts upon our environment,we must have some type of comprehensive systems analysis capability, available to all, rather than continue to rely on values which usually fail to recognize the tolerances and dynamics of the human and naturalsystems.

One method of achieving such a capability would be through theuse of what is called Space-Time Analysis (STA). I will briefly describe this, presenting it as an information system concept, ratherthan a specific proposal.

1. The first step in STA would be to establish a three-dimensional grid system for the entire Great Lakes coastal zone. This grid system would encompass the submerged lands, the water, the shorelands,to some extent inland areas, and the atmosphere.

2. On this grid system one would start a long-range project of mapping the parameters and variables of the natural system and subsystem components. If the results of all Great Lakes research could be placed in a standard space-time format, one could identify theparameters and dynamics of system components as they fluctuate over periods of timefrom minutes to years.

With this objective in mind, it becomes clear that cell size would have to be variable, and perhaps some cells wouldnever be filled. But this approach would allow the coordination of presently fragmentedand overlapping research, and would place it in a form which could eventually be used for day-to-day decision-making by management personnel. This approach would also help to identify where additional research is needed.

3. Once this system is established, one would be able to identify the potential impacts of human activities or sets of activities thatdo or might occur within the Great Lakes coastal zone.

We have identified a number of factors which influence the impact activity will have upon the Great Lakes coastal system. 73

a. Each human activity can be said to have a basic potential for disruption which will tend to be higher or lower relative to other activities. Thus snowmobiles would have more disruptive potential than cross- country skiing. This potential for disruption, combined with the natural tolerances of an area, will determine the intrinsic impact of an activity for a specific resource area.

b. The density and intensity of an activity are variables which can be other controlling factors in an activity's impact. Again using snowmobiles as an example, five snowmobiles per square mile can have considerably different impact than fifty, and leisurely sightseeing on tnese machines can have a different type and degree of impact than racing them.

c. The duration of an activity also is an important variable. nany resource systems can tolerate (we now know) a considerable amount of activity over short periods of time. However, they may be adversely affected if exposed to the same activity or sets of activities over extended periods of time. In the future one of the most effective resource management tools may be the scheduling of activities so as to match them to the tolerance time-spans of the areas affected.

d. In terms of activity assessment, the most difficult question is that of how the impact of one activity is affected by the presence of other activities.As an example, it is now widely recognized that the placement of a sewage interceptor line can affect the pattern of residential, commercial, and industrial development. It is also clear teat transportation systems, utility corridors, and communications networks can have a similar effect. Under present conditions it would seem unreasonable and rather difficult for an agency to consider its proposed activity in relation to other concurrent activities. Yet the resulting impact of these interlinked activities can be synergistic or neutralizing. Incremental assessments concerned with fragmented sectors of the natural or human systems may not begin to identify all of the pertinent factors which should be considered.

It might be possible to get around these difficulties if all of the activities, and their impacts, could be interlinked in the inventory system mentioned earlier.

One could identify, for each activity, all of the physical elements necessary for it to occur. We call this an activity network.An activity network for recreational fishing might include the location of fish hatcheries, boat ramps, camping grounds, marinas, sport shops, as well as transportation networks and parking areas.

To deal with the impacts of these activity networks one could combine the impact factors which I have mentioned to construct impact networks for each activity and set of activities. These would indicate the often unexpected secondary or tertiary effects of an activity, which go beyond the immediate boundaries of the activity network and disrupt the dynamics of human and natural systems, and interfere with other activities. 74

For recreational fishing such a network might include a demand for better water quality, the increased demand for shoreland residential housing, crowded boat facilities, and conflicts with other water or shoreland activities.

If such a system could be established, the potential applications are at least in part, obvious, and I think sufficient to warrant further consideration. One of the most obvious applications would be to provide a service to state and federal agencies. Through the use of this design and management tool, an agency would now have the information needed to carry out a complex assessment.

It is in this area that the Sea Grant Programs may have a significant impact. The bringing together of research information and policy and strategy formulation. This relates to our goal of how to use research findings in policy making.

As a last recommendation to you, I would like to suggest a specific mechanism by which the question of information and concepts like the STA might be approached. As I mentioned earlier, I believe the need for further creation of management authority is not critical. There has been considerable discussion in the past three years about various institutional arrangements for managing the Great Lakes. I would again hypothe- size that we need to pay more attention to development of sufficient information for existing agencies and institutional arrangements.

One could visualize, and I have, a management authority say for Lake Michigan made up of the four bordering states. I would propose, however, that instead of a management authority that we consider the creation of a "Lake Michigan Environmental Information Center."Such a center would be created as a non-profit entity by the four states bordering Lake Michigan. It would have responsibility to collect, assemble and display existing data on Lake Michigan. It would also have an in-house capability to carry out extensive monitoring programs of its own. It would not be a research institute, but rather a center for determining base line measure- ments, inventory of waste inputs to the Lake, projection of waste loads, assessment of the effectiveness of waste treatment facilities' construction on water quality, etc. It could contract with universities to carry out applied research in specific areas where a lack of fundamental knowledge regarding environmental quality was indicated. It could implement the space-time analysis concept that I discussed earlier.

It would be necessary to have state and federal agreement that any and all data gathered with state or federal dollars regarding Lake Michigan or its major tributaries be supplied to the Center.

Monitoring activities of the center would be for two major purposes: to assess the effectiveness and impact of the various state water quality regulations and to assess the effectiveness of waste removal programs in the states. As remote sensing technology develops via airborne and satellite applications, the center could coordinate ground truth and data collection activities for the entire Lake.

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The center would, at regular periods, issue cemvehensisstate- ments regarding the flow of materials into the Lake Ind the L.,or quality of the Lake as indicated by a variety of different indicatcs.

WHO? Senate Bill 5.1113, the National Environmental Center Act of 1971, which has been passed by the Senate, is a possible startle. point for such a cooperative long-range research program and center. the federal and state purposes could be used to support CI's concept.

CONCLUSION

:EPA is a first step in allowing us to use the natural s-stems of this planet without destroying them, and without inadvertently changing our whole system. It is a good first stop, signifyiog ar. immensely important shift in public attitudes tc"ard natural resources, and hopefully many states will adopt similar legislation.

However, the approach of NEPA and similar legislaCln is to some extent putting the cart before the horse. Telling executive agencies that they should consider all relevant factors and all possible alternatives does not mean that they will be able to do so. We need not only a new approach, one of comprehensive systems analysis, but also new tools, such as a STA system.

The problems involved in establishing such tools ate great, and once created would have considerable impact upon existent social, political, and economic decision-making theory. But the need is great. If we continue to assess our actions with partial information, we could find ourselves in a situation like the man who finally got to the top of the ladder and found it was leaning against the wrong wall.

Footnote

lEnvironmental Quality. The First Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality. August, 1970. U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 22.

SO Some Impact Assessment Dimensions

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CONCEPTUALIZING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Paul Sager Associate Professor University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

The term, environment, is a most inclusive one. Problems associated with the analysis of Environmental Impact certainly have their origin in the all-inclusive nature of the term. In the same sense, a definition of Environmental Impact can be made only in a rather general sense unless one goes into the detailed array of factors and activities commonly observed in different matrix designs used to assess the effects of various actions on the environment. It seems likely that this detailed approach to assessment, if not evident already (USGS Circular 645), will be discussed later in this conference. Therefore, it appears permissible to pursue some thoughts of a more general nature on this question of: What is Environmental Impact?

Any activity which results in an alteration in the environment or in any of the components of the environment can be regarded as having an impact. Consequently the quantification of the alteration becomes the critical constraint. In light of the fact that the alteration may be manifest in any of many sets of factors, the question of norms or standards or guidelines becomes very obvious. Is there a normal or standard against which assessment of alterations can be made?Obviously in most cases there is little basis for an absolute scale of unaltered environmental parameters, but perhaps such a scale will ultimately be desirable. At present, alteration remains a relative concept., If the word damage is used in assessing impact, some precision is gained, although it still is a relative term. By analogy, temperature is a relative concept although it can be measured absolutely as well. It is possible for water of 35°F to be relatively warm to the touch when the air temperature is -10°F!

The critical question appears to be: When is the alteration to the environment serious enough to forestall or prevent any given activity? What should be the bbsis for assessing environmental impact?What are the critical parameters or concepts that should be included in an evaluation of possible alteration?

It appears to be premature to construct a framework of critical factors and associated value scales in the absence of a widely accepted philosophy of environmental values. Some thoughts on this consideration are within the admittedly narrow bounds of this paper.

Two areas of concern can be singled out for more serious thought on the problem of defining environmental impact. One is ecological in nature and the other is more human oriented. Both are guidelines that raise the question of long-term effects on man as an organism and on 80

natural ecosystems which are an integral part of the biosphere andan integral part of man's existence.

Other generations will follow the existing ones.Decisions made today not only have an immediate effect on our society, but could also influence the quality of life for subsequent generations.Thus, environmental deterioration is much like genetic damage in organisms. It is an accumulative phenomenon that is a function of the many susceptiblecom- ponents of the environment. The type of damage that is most significant is that which does not allow for recovery but which ismore or less permanent.

It is important for man as an evolving organism to maintain aper- spective of his rather recent cultural development. It is important also to appreciate the momentum of the dominance, both biological and technological, that he has developed over a relatively short period of time. During the early stages of his evolution, man spent over 100,000years adapted to a natural environment, genetically programmed to the sights, sounds, and odors of a natural landscape. And although the first significant alteration of the total environment began with theIndus- trial Revolution in the 1800s, the greatest impact of man's culture has probably occurred within the past 50 years.One must question the recent proliferation of steel, concrete, asphalt, and flashing lights in the context of effects on an organism that is removed only a few hundred generations from a drastically different environment.

Environmental impact, then, ought to be defined or evaluatedon the basis of man's ability to tolerate or adapt, both physically and mentally, to the altered, artificial environment that is rapidly being created. It is difficult to determine if such a philosophy is presently beingincor- porated into the concept of Environmental Impact. It appears that we now consider only changes in the immediate physical environment. Man is too frequently excluded from the biotic component of the environment in assessment of impact. Yet, in terms of the high mobility of people, the transportation explosion, and the vast array of mass communication alternatives available today, man represents a very sensitive part of the biota. Local effects are important for local populations but, today, the likelihood of vast numbers of people encountering the alterationis very great. Environmental deterioration, in effect, can be multiplied and extended over large areas of the biosphere.The question of the temporal summation and spatial extension of effects thusappears to be critical enough for greater consideration in the assessment ofenvironmental impacts.

A related consideration that comes to the forefront in the minds of ecologists and others is the value placed on the diversity of natural Communities and ecosystems. Thousands of years have gone into the natural development of these areas. As such, they represent a heritage of great value, not only of ecological importance but alsoesthetic and psychological.

Ecologists see the value of diversity as a stabilizing element in nature. The diversity of plant and animal communities represents the basis for the "web of life." Stability in the natural component of the E3 environment is intimately connected with what Aldo Leopold has referred to as the "health of the land." It is important that high priority for protection be given to the remaining patches of natural landscape. They afford opportunity for the additional studies that are needed for a more thorough understanding of the functioning of ecosystems and the establishment of base data on "normal," undisturbed components of the environment. Moreover, each biotic province needs its own undisturbed areas for this type of study and use. It is further suggested that diversity in the landscape performs an important esthetic and psychological role for man as a sensitive organism in the biosphere.

Included in the general philosophy which should be a basis for environmental impact analysis is the fact that the natural components of the environment represent integrated systems.The impact of various activities on the environment, then, must be assessed not in terms of isolated physical or biological or chemical factors but on the basis of effects noted or predicted for the total system.The impact of activity is generally a dynamic one, with ramifications in compartments other than the obvious ones. So the appraisal of impacts cannot be made statically. The environment represents a set of interconnected components and must be analyzed accordingly as an active, dynamic system.Distur- bance of such complex systems are frequently detected at a point in time much later than at the time of initial impact.

In summary, it seems that guidelines are critically necessary for evaluating the question of when is an activity having or going to have a serious enough impact on the environment to justify curtailment of that activity. A precursor to the formulation of those guidelines might be the general acceptance of a philosophy of environmental values stress- ing the role of the natural landscape in maintaining an appropriate quality level of life for man in the biosphere. It appears to be particularly necessary to critically evaluate the need for any given ddvelop- ment or alteration of the environment rather than assess the relative impacts of alternatives which will still meet the apparent need. 83

COMMUNICATING IN IMPACT ANALYSIS

Robert S. Cook Associate Professor University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

The word environment, its definition, and several ways of identifying points of impact have been quite adequately discussed. The question of how to recognize or determine significant environmental impact, and then, how to cope with it, are the two greatest problems facing us today. A crystal ball is needed! But, upon closer inspection, it appears that communication may be even more seriously needed.

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 has been hailed by many as one of the first acts of Congress that is forcing us into the necessary communication. It is usually much easier to talk about something than to put it in writing. Now, however, for the first time certain projects necessary for the benefit of society have to be evaluated in writing, then the evaluation must be circulated for review, and lastly, a final statement prepared describing how potential points of environmental impact will be handled. It looks like a good process, and the Council of Environmental Qualities "102 Monitor" gives long lists of such statements. However, the question of whether or not the content of these statements will really be significantly reflected in the actual projects remains to be seen. When the statements are not regarded as more homework, but as a useful tool to be used to give us a better environment, then progress will have been made. At this conference there are encouraging signs indicating this may happen.

The Environmental Impact Statement for Project Sanguine may not be typical but it is an interesting one. The draft statement dated March, 1971, says (p. iii) the final draft cannot be expected until several years hence because it will be based on environmental research results that will take time. "The goal of the Project Sanguine Environmental Compatibility Assurance Program remains to ensure that an operational ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) communications system, if designed and displayed, would be compatible with the environment."

In the Sanguine Project there are two major areas of impact: 1) that which includes the biological effects of the electromagnetic fields generated by the system, and 2) the installation disturbance to the countryside.

The first concern I must leave to the experts and many such persons are at work on the problem today. The second concern I can address myself to, and as one trained in wildlife ecology, I know the creation of "edge" in that kind of northern hardwood habitat would be very beneficial to wild populations, 'especially white-tailed deer, ruffed grouse, snowshoe hare and many small birds and mammals. But, therein lies the necessity 84

for careful research on the electromagnetic effects on animals. Suppose research does reveal some subtle effect but the Navy concludes it is negligible because of the limited wild populations that now exist in the area. This conclusion could have a significant impact if the populations became concentrated in the disturbed areas, thus becoming vulnerable and hence serving as reservoirs of "slightly affected genetically" birds and animals. Consequently, the two major environmental impact concerns are quite closely intertwined.

The experimental results indicated in the draft environmental impact statement seemed to indicate that a number of areas require further investigation, e.g., soil invertebrates, bacterial response, fruit-fly mutagenesis, and seed germination. Predicting the environmental impact for this huge project is a costly, time consuming process for a project having a very debatable purpose.

Another concern that pertains to statement preparations has to deal with their content. A survey of environmental impact statements indicates that a special jargon is emerging. The category pertaining to

"Land Resources Protection" contains such statements as ". . . would be preserved in their existing condition or restored to natural conditions after construction is complete."

- or "Water Resources Protection" contains such statements as "Construction contracts would include environmental stipulations preventing pollution of streams and lakes by fuels, oils, bitumens, calcium

chloride . . . and by erosion after construction is complete."

- or "Protection of Fish and Wildlife" contains such statements as H . . . required to perform the work at all times according to environmental stipulations that prevent interference or disturbance to native fish and wildlife."

The above types of statements are hard to argue with and they put the agency preparing the statement on record as to just what they will do--or should it be intend to do?Being human and possessed with senses with which to perceive our environment, we are aware of the gap that usually ex-tits between what is intended and what actually happens. Someone once said the "road to ruin is paved with good intentions."

We know it is impossible to "prevent interference or disturbance to native fish and wildlife" during most projects where they exist. Why not say, "attempts will be made to minimize interference or disturbance to native fish and wildlife?" At. least be realistic in the preparations. In reality, what counts most is what happens if an okay is given and then an infractionoccurs. Herein I feel lies a large problem, because it is the level of enforcement that makes the words in the statement become a reality.

S. The lack of a crystal ball puts the burden of responsibility squarely on our shoulders. We must solve our existing daily problems as well as plan ahead to circumvent others we can perceive on the horizon. What concerns me is how realistic are we? A healthy, thriv- ing biological ceasunity is one in which much diversity exists. We humans seem to ignore this as our activities encourage the monotypic. When our village parks become clogged, we build bigger highways to "open areas."Then, as they become clogged, we go on from there. Granted, we cannot stop in time. We arc a part of a dynamic biological community and therefore change is going to take place. We are all guessing about what we need in the future, but the guesses must be educated ones.

All the responsibility for resource management should not he placed on public agencies. People, local, county, state and federal governments, and industry, for example, are all pressure groups. Public agencies are obviously for the public, therefore they are very sensitive to public pressures. The need for progress usually results from the chance to make a dollar or from pressure - -both are strong incentives. How the project for progress proceeds is the debatable issue concerning us today.

Should a city highway by-pass cut through a park, avoid the park but destroy the aesthetics of half of it, or go slightly further outside the city and avoid the park altogether? It sounds like a simple problem, but its solution depends on whether you belong to the city council who wants development in the area and a series of beltlines, or to that segment of the population who believes parks are more than ball diamonds, swings, and sandboxes, or a member of the highway department who must plan transportation routes and wants the most road for the least money and public confrontation!

In summary, decisions have to be made and people must make them. To be intelligent decisions they require careful considerations of past successes and mistakes, present needs and pressures, and future needs. Decisions today must be group decisions and input is needed from a diverse number of sourcef.. This requires communication, which to me is one of the most necessary ingredients for the success of utilizing environmental impact analysis as a tool to be used in building a better society.

S7 a7

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF ENVIRWMENTAL IMPACT

Per K. Johnson Assistant Professor University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

I. Expansion of Concept

The concept of environmental impact ought to be expanded to include concerns for the social ramifications of any project under consideration. Questions should be asked such as: Will the project adversely affect the life styles of the residents nearby? Will it cause disruptions of well established behavior patterns of a substantial number of people? What will be the results in the social structures which exist in the area?With proper attention to these topics we can help assure that public projects will have a minimum detrimental effect on the social environment.

Let us expand these ideas a little further using an example. Con- sider a nighway project through an urban area.The concerns for engineering, traffic control, and safety can easily be attended to. But what about tine more intangible effects on the neighborhoods involved? How can they be measured? This is an almost impossible problem at the present stage of knowledge in the social sciences.The long-term effects of a major highway through a neighborhood are impossible to measure, and almost impossible to anticipate. But because these concerns do not lend themselves to measurement, they should not be ignored. In fact, they should receive the bulk of the attention, because by focusing on these things, we might discover indicators of disruptions of the social environment at an earlier stage. In connection with the present example, there is soma research which can be applied.

Kevin Lynch at MIT has for a number of years conducted studies in the area of urban behavior. Specifically, his interest has been in the process by which we view the physical surroundings and the meanings certain locations acquire over time.This "image" of the city, as Lynch calls it, is an essential part of a person's development of a proper self identity. We form images of the settings we occupy and from these images we place ourselves in both space and in a social unit. From this develops a sense of place and belonging which the individualuses to aid in his identification with his surroundings. The characteristics of the image of the city that the person forms depend on the qualities of the setting. A small neighborhood which has distinctive qualities and is easily defined allows stronger feelings of identification thanan amor- phous area with characteristics add boundaries thatare more difficult to define. As an example, in many cities the size of Green Bay, there are residential areas close to the heart of the city as well as rapidly growing areas surrounding the city. The research by Lynch supports my contention that the inner-city residential areas, with built-in variety 88 88

and uniqueness lead to clearer images, a stronger sense of belonging and, hence, a more integrated self identity on the part of the residents than does the stereotype suburbia with its vast areas of sameness.

When considering the environmental impact of a project on a neighborhood it is vital to consider the qualities of that neighborhood which benefit its residents. A highway project through an urban residential neighbarhood has the potential for causing severe disruptions in the process of the development of a sense of belonging among the people who will live in proximity of the road while not directly benefiting by its presence. By such a project the people who find themselves cut off from the rest of the city by a concrete barrier will also lose part of their feelings of affiliation with the city, which might, in turn, lead to anti-social behavior among the young in these physically alienated areas. We have witnessed the segmenting of our major cities by such construction and, without adequate data to document their effects, we may wonder about the long-term consequences on the residents who find themselves surrounded. Some of the worst mistakes of the past have come back to haunt us.The failure of the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in St. Louis remains as a brutal public lesson concerning the consequences of ignoring some important social variables.

II. Definition of Social Variables

Let us now try to identify some of the social variables which ought to be considered in any environmental impact analysis. In spit. of difficulties in measurement, these variables should, nevertheless, be attended to. First, and perhaps most important, there are concerns for the life styles and behavior patterns of the people to be affected. Some of the most obvious disruptions, such as physical relocation, noise, pollution, and traffic volume, can at least be quantified.But the puzzling questions arise when we are confronted by questions concerning the long-term effects of these on the life styles of the people involved. Will the project mean major changes in recreation patterns?Will it lead to alterations in pedestrian uses of the affected areas?What will be the effects on shopping habits, routes to school, or neighborhood social patterns.

Secondly, there is the elusive term, quality of life. There is little agreement on its meaning, yet the concern for its preservation is strong. As scientists and professionals concerned with the protection of the environment we must insure that projects of which we are a part do as little as possible to degrade the quality of life of the people affected. Quality of life might be operationally defined in terms of behavior patterns and life styles.

Finally, we can deal with what data might be available on attitudes and opinions. If the data is not there it can be collected. I will talk a little more about that at the end of my presentation.In order to ascertain the impact of a project on the social environment, we might ask people what they think of the potential alternatives. If it becomes clear that there is strong public sentiment against the completion of a particular project, it may be advisable to change the plans in accord with those sentiments. 89

III. Measurement

Now we come to the question of how to get the social data necessary to make enlightened decisions. I will in this connection briefly mention one line of studies which has led to tangible effects. I see the necessity of including some social science research in most environmental impact analyses. It will not be sufficient to sample the social winds and then, on the basis of these huncnes, make decisions which will affect large numbers of people without suffering the consequences of what might be a disasterous decision.

What is called for is a systematic series of studies usingone or more of the following techniques.The most straightforward approach is to sample the opinions of a random selection of the population involved in order to determine what the prevalent mood is. This can be done by either the direct interview technique using a trained interviewer,or by the use of questionnaires which can be distributed ina public place or mailed to the respondents. In either case, the information gained from the answers to carefully worded questions allows public officials to make decisions in the presence of some data.The best example in this area of research is a series of studies conducted by ClaireCooper in San Francisco and the Bay Area. In trying to evaluate present housing projects through the use of questionnaires, she not only obtained data on the residents' attitudes toward the present situation, but she provided information to the public authorities regardinguser preferences which could be used in future projects.She studied three housing projects in the area, St. Francis Square, a downtown middle-income, garden apartment; Easter Hills, a lower-income, townhouse project; and Geneva Towers, a high-rise, lower-income development. She found that in the first and, to some extent, the second, the important social variables concerning needs for privacy, convenience, safety, andgeneral habitability had been taken into account, and the resultswere that the residents were more satisfied, they stayed there longer, and theytook better care of what they had while they were there. In the third case, the high-rise, there was a high degree of vandalism, quickturnover, and a general dissatisfaction with the surroundings. The impact of that social environment was, for the most part, devastating.Studies such as those of Miss Cooper are fairly easy to conduct and they yield valuable data for anyone attempting to analyze the effecton people of any public project.

There are a couple of other soncces. of information which oughtto be used. The technique of simple ol:servation is as old as scientific inquiry, yet it is too often overlooke. when it comes to social research. If the question concerns the number of people whouse a particular wilder- ness area a strategically placed observer can determine this easily. With that information, the decision can be made whetheror not the area is suitable for the intended project. Observational techniques can also be used in urban areas. We are presently completing a study of theuse patterns of selected urban parks in Green Bay with the objective of determining who uses these parks, for what purposes,at what times, and in what kinds of weather. This information will be fed to the local park and recreation department to be used in decisionsconcerning remodeling of present parks or the construction ofnew ones. What I am

ki suggesting is that the use of observation can not only gain basic data on human behavior, but can be used as a feedback loop in the decision- making process in the design of the physical environment.

The final source of data I will mention is the wealth of information regarding social variables which is available through public records that are compiled for other purposes. Voting records, birth and death records, library records, and other public records contain information on the attitudes, preferences, and behavior patterns of the population. They are available to anyone.

What I have hoped to show is that there exist some vital social variables in environmental impact analysis which, if overlooked, can lead to unfortunate consequences.Many of these variables do not at present lend themselves to easy measurement, but we can do more in our concern with them. If man is also a part of the environment, then he has too often been the loser.

91 91

SOME THOUGHTS ON IMPACT STATEMENTS AND MATHEMATICS

Eugene Robkin Assistant Professor University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

"One look is worth a hundred reports." --Japanese Proverb

"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." -- Benjamin Franklin

The situation here neither requires nor permits detailed exposition, so I thought I might just provide a brief inventory of the mathematical techniques which I could find in use in those environmental impact statements available to me. Now it is true that these are a small ,.ample of the impact statements that have been prepared, and it is true that conclusions drawn from such small unrepresentative samples are unreliable, but it is also true that of the statements I examined only one had any mathematics in it at all beyond elementary statistics and that one was not a formal impact statement. I am not counting as mathematics such statements as, "probably the following will be the case" which occurs in many of the statements. As it is used, that sort of phrase is a conven- tionalized replacement for, "in my opinion" at best and for, "it would be nice if the following were true" at worst.

As far as mathematics is concerned, the major preliminary difficulty with environmental impacts is that the problems are both ill-formulated and not readily quantified. In the absence of firm quantified standards for impact, mathematical analysis cannot deal readily with the question of, "is the impact sufficiently great to warrant termination of the project?" or "should the project be delayed while additional data is generated?" It is much easier to use uncertain data or non-quantified data to choose among alternatives which are qualitatively similar. That is, relative judgments are much easier than absolute ones.

I would like to provide a few warnings about the employment of mathematicians on problems such as this. You should not be surprised if a mathematician agrees to consider the problem offered and returns with a mathematical treatise with unidentifiable connections to the original problem. It is not surprising that an ill-formulated problem leads to an ill-connected solution. After all you have effectively hired a man to look for something without telling him what it is, or when or where you lost it. Like the drunk in the well known joke, he not only looks where he finds light, but he picks a part of town where he is comfortable, and he stops looking when he finds something that interests him.If you are lucky you will recognize some use for what was found. There is a possibility that the mathematics will be interesting and useful to mathematicians. 92

What often happens in these cases is that insome areas the mathematics returns more than was expected and insome areas less than was expected. There is an example of what happens whena non-mathematics problem is delivered up to the tender mercies ofthe computer and the mathematician. In the early days of large computers therewas considerable optimism about the use of computers forautomated translation of languages. It was the failure of this optimism which has ledto much more sophisticated views of language on the one hand andgreater clever- ness in the use of logic in computers on the other.One classic check on a translation is the double translation. A statement in English, for example, is translated to another language andthen that statement, as an original input to the program is translated into English. The close- ness of the second translation to the original English is, ofcourse, a measure of your skill as a computer programmer andyour understanding of the logical structure, if any, of the languages involved.The phrase selected for this particular trial was the good old Englishproverb "The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." After thedouble translation the new English rendering was, more or less, "TheVodka is OK but the roast is spoiled."

There is also a tendency to use those mathematical modelsand tools of analysis which yield results whichare in agreement with a priori positions determined as acceptable before the analysis.While there is nothing inherently wrong with this process, it is dishonestto use the mathematical result as "proof" of the correctness of thea priori position. The circularity of this kind of argument is painfullyobvious.

The second great difficulty in the application of mathematicsto problems which are both as difficult as the impact problemand as ill- formulated as that, is the retreat to linear models and linearmanipu- lations. A feature of linear relationships which is important here is the fact that small changes in one variable lead to small changesin others. Whatever you may mean by "small."It may come as a surprise to some, but I hope not, that the real world is simply not linear. Small changes do not necessarily lead to small effects. I am sure that you could all tell endless apocryphal stories about enormous fights waged over highway routes that were a foot too close tosome uniquely dear tree and required its removal. Football games are often decided by fractions of an inch in the position of the ball or ofsome player. I do not recall who first used the following example but it isa good one. It is hard to imagine an event more trivial in a linear and stable world than the introduction of a diphtheria bacillusonto the mucous membranes of a human, or an event with such possibly cataclysmic results. Forcing environmental problems into the Procrustean bed of linearity will lead to fatal errors in any determination of absolute impact. It is less serious if the goal is a relative judgment between two closely related alternatives.

iP Along with the retreat to a linear world goes a retreat toa quantifiable one. It is tc.easy to emphasize in any analysis those factors which are quantifiable, and to ignore other factors which have notor perhaps cannot be quantified.You can see this in many highway route selection computer programs which emphasize costs, construction times, mileage, maintenance, numbers of bridges, and the like.The

aU 93/9V mathematician and the computer cannot yet, if ever, substitute for the kinds of political, moral, ethical, and biological determinations that you are being called on to make. "COMPUTER" is not a mystical synonym for "GOD."

You will note that the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 in Section 102, Subsection C, part IV, requires that environmental impact statements address themselves to the relationship between local and short-term uses of the environment and long-term effects. I know of only one that attempts to do so. The other environmental impact analyses that I have seen, and I remind you that that is not a large number, make the tacit assumption that the future world will be the same as the present one. The future is dismissed with a figurative wave of the hand. This assumption may have some merit when dealing with the impact of a highway route through an established urban area, but I personally doubt it even for that situation. It is clearly wrong when the change itself acts as an attraction to further change. As

Professor Eugene Odum has said ". . . an Interstate Highway is one of the most irresistible developmental magnets produced by man."To assess environmental impact for a development in an area of previously light development one must include some analysis of the impact in the longer term. There must be some attempt to deal with the future. I know of one analysis that makes a real attempt to do this. You may know of others. I am referring to a computer program for evaluating alternate highway routes proposed to fill in a gap in Interstate 75 near Atlanta, Georgia.' I do not think that a description has yet appeared in print. I assume that copies are available. You will note that this program dealt with a strictly relative problem. There were eight specific alternatives considered.The inclusion of the long-term effects in this program served to separate the proposed highway routes into relatively high and low impact categories.A test run with only present impacts accounted for, that is, ignoring the future, suppressed these differences. This one example suggests to me that the inclusion of long-term effects in environmental impact statements will prove to be an extremely useful tool for distinguishing the relative magnitude of effects.

'Optimum Pathway Matrix AnalysisApproach to the Environmental Decision Making Process ---- Testcase: Relative Impact of Proposed highway Alternatives, Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia,Athens, Georgia, 1971.

s.A Environmental Impact Assessment

f=5 97

SOME PROCEDURES AND PROGRAMS OR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT

Jens C. Sorenson Graduate Researcher University of Califoinia-Berkeley

The problem of systemat.cally relating the actions of a proposed project to possible changes of environmental conditions has been well recognized by agencies with responsibility for preparation or review of impact statements. The problem has been growing in recent months as new guidelines (by CEQ, the courts, or the agencies) have continued to expand the scope of environmental considerations that should be taken into account when preparing or reviewing an impact statement.

The first attempt to systematically relate project actions to environmental condition changes was the United States Geologic Survey's Circular 645, by Leopold and Hanshaw--which I believe most of you are familiar with. To my knowledge the USGS circular is still the only impact analysis published, although I hear that Battelle Institute has recently prepared a procedure for the Bureau of Reclamation, which I understand has had limited distribution.

According to USGS procedure, environmental impact can systematically be determined by using a matrix to show the relation of a project's action-activities to a comprehensive listing of environmental conditions that might be effected by the action-activities. The USGS procedure has proven to be of value on two counts. First, by prcviding the first comprehensive listing of factors that should be considered in impact statements. Secondly, by demonstrating to other agencies the possibilicy of factoring the environment into discrete characteristics capable of being analyzed for condition change. However, I foresee two major difficulties that agencies will have in the application of this procedure.

The basic problem is the inability of a simple matrix format tl depict the network of interrelationships that actually develop between action (or cause) and the consequent environmental effects.It is well known that the environment operates as a complex system and can not accurately be characterized by direct cause and effect relationships. The actual system might more correctly be described as an ;.pact network. That is to say, an action can cause one or more conditior changes which in turn can each produce one or more subsequent condition changes before resulting in one or more terminal effects. An example might be highway- cuts or fills that would initially cause erosion of soil off slopes into streams, but which subsequently would increase stream turbidity, shoaling of water course, or alteration of stream channel regime.These in turn would increase stream flood potential, block passage of aquatic biota, or degrade stream habitat for aquatic biota.

t. In its present form the USGS can only indicatethat a relationship between initial cause and terminal environmental effectexists but it does not indicate the nature of that relationship. For example, the matrix relationship between dredging and water quality mightbe due to turbidity or release of toxic minerals or could beattributable to several conditions. In order to describe the exact relationship the reviewer or proponent is advised to construct detailed matricesor give an explanation in the text of an accompanying report. The matrix in its present state of development is too ambiguous to show cause/effect relationships and therefore not of assistance in enablingthe preparer to determine both how and what the changes in environmental condition will be. Likewise, unless the matrix relationshipsare explained, the reviewer of ti'? impact statement will be unable tosee how the relationships between project actions and environmental conditionchanges were determined. It appears that a person who could explain all the complex matrix relationships would not need to rely on the USGS procedureto write ar review the impact statement.

A better method of relating project actions to environmental impact might be to use a cause-condition-effect network since itmore closely approximates environmental interaction.One group--the California Com- prehensive Ocean Area Planning Programhas applied this method of environmental impact assessment. The set of four sheets handed out show the system of impact networks developed to relate all the significant coastal resource uses to their known pctential impacts on the coastal environment system. Most of the networks displayed were developed by relating known adverse coastal environmeital impactsto the condition changes that produced them, and then tracing these condition changes back to project actions.

The present display format is read most easily by starting with "use" at the upper left corner and proceedingacross and down to "causal factors" ("activities"). From there move down and r.cross to "initial condition change," "subsequent condition changes," and "final effects." Adjacent to "effects" are columns for describing corrective actionsor control mechanisms that might be employed to mitigate or eliminate the adverse effects identified in the preceding column. Such a listing of specific adverse effects and corrective reactions permits comparisonto be made among project alternatives as to environmental impact either with or without corrective actions taken.The last column to the right was added to provide at least one specific reference to each cause- condition-effect network. References would serve several purposes. They would establish a degree of relevance in terms of actual site and time circumstances. That is, past known occurrences and what the network indicates as a possible future recurrence. References would also indicate the risk of an impact occurring on a particular location; more specific relationships between causes, conditions and effects; andpro- cedures to avoid, minimize or correct the adverse impacts identified. One particular application of the network display is to act as information index--the statements and relationships are detailed enough to identify where specific information is available to describe the impact. However, the problem of extr: -ting only the information relevant to the project has been encountered when actually using the network display. To correct this situation we are presently computer automating the 99

networks.Computerization will allow us to easily add, delete, or correct the display according to new impact analysis information. I should comment that the network display is now fifteen months o:d and needs considerable expansion and some correction to incorporate new information that has come to light over that period of time (particularly social and economic information).

Computer automation will al.E.o allow portrayals of networks according to a project type or a specific roject action. It will then he possible to have printouts for a particular project type or action; therefore, eliminating the tedious effort of manually tracing through the entire display each time a project is being reviewed.The capability of having impact networks displayed according to project type brings me hack to my second criticism of the USGS matrix.

USGS has attempted to iner.ude on one sheet both the definitive listings covering virtually al: project actions as well as all environmental conditions that could b.impacted. The attempt to combine these two on one sheet has produced a matrix too cumbersome to work with because of its size but yet not specific enough to fully describe a project's actions or the resultant environmental conditions impacted. It appears to be far more practical to develop impact identification formats for each major project type.

Recently I made a survey of eight Federal Agencies that have the major responsibilities for preparing or reviewing environmental impact statements. The survey was conducted in the San Fransisco Bay region among the regional offices of the agencies.The purpose of the survey was to determine if the agencies had independently developed any environmental impact identification procedures. The survey results turned up only one impact review procedure that was nearing completion. The usual answer was "We are preparing such a procedure."Generally all that was presently available were administrative directiveson how to process and route impact statements.

I can recommend to you the one impact identification procedure that I did find. It was prepared by the Environmental Protection Agency for review of sewage disposal projects. It is in the form of a cheekily: of environmental factors which may or may not be impacted bysewage plant location or change in operations. However, it still remains for the proponent of the sewage facility and EPA to determine how the actions associated with the operation may or may not relate to the environmental factors listed. The impact network methodology could be constructedto relate the actions normally associated with a sewage plantto the environmental factors listed by EPA.Once the networks are developed, it is possible to incorporate the information contained in theminto specific project review guidelines. The coastal impact networks described earlier have been applied in this manner to develop specific coastal planning guidelines for county government.

One particularly commendable point about the EPAsewage plant review procedure is that it covers second level impactsor, more specifically, those dealing with changes in landuse, conflict with 100

the areas planning program, or development of open space generated by the new plant location or operation. To quote from their guidelines:

"-To what degree will this project encourage residential or industrial growth that will result in a change of character of the urea?

- To what extent will undeveloped areas be sewered as a result c7 this and allied projects?

- Is the project compatible with the type of growth desired by residents of the area?

- Will the project conform to future land use planning?"

Projects, particularly those that are infrastructural: that is, sewage plants, water supply systems, highways, shipping channels, airports, railroads and rapid transit, will be required to commenton the environmental impacts of development that they generate. The recent Federal Highway Administration guidelines for implementing the NEPA (Memorandum 90-1) are particularly explicit regarding consideration

of a highway's "long term effects." They cite and I quote, ". . . fore- seen cnanges in land use resulting from the highway improvement or other similarly related items that may either limit or expand landuse, affect water, air, wildlife, etc., and other environmental factors." The memorandum also cites as an example of irretrievable commitment of

resources, ". . . a highway improvement which provides access to a non- accessable area, acting as a catalyst for industrial, commercial, or residential development of an area." In preparation or review of impact statements, development generated by the project as well as the impact identification procedure must be evaluated. In many, if not most cases, it can be demonstrated that the imnact associated with development so generated is greater in magnitude than the projects own, direct impact. This point has already been bought out several times in this conference.

It is quite apparent that future impact statements will have to consider a much larger scope of environmental issues as well as extend their coverage to social, economic and political consijerations. To accomplish this all encompassing task with any degree of precision, agencies will have an even greater need to develop systematic impact identification procedures and give some order to the welter of environmental considerations possible. I would recommend that Federal Agencies develop an environmental impact identification procedure for each project type for which they are normally the prop^nent or reviewer. I would also recommend that the impact identification procedure consist of cause-condition-effect networks that would facilitate connection of project typos specific actions to impacts known to have occurred in response to these specific actions. I would assume that the procedures would best be dedeloped if the agencies that normally propose a project type collaborate with those agencies that have specific responsibility for reviewing the impacts associated with that project type. An example would be the Highway Administration requesting assistance from HUD in preparing networks describing the impart of highways on urban areas; or

09 ICI requesting EPA assistance in preparing network relationships betw.t.n road cuts, fills and erosion impact on water bodies; or requesting from USGS, networks describing the effects of highway's impervious si.rfacing on stream flow peak discharge.

Judging from the record of project types listed in the "102 Monitor," impact identification formats are most needed for review of highways, impoundments, flood-control and stream channelizations, deep draft channels, water supply systems, sewage systems, power plants, airports, timber harvest, solid waste disposal, excavation, and mining. This enumeration adds up to eleven impact identification formats.

I would like to stress the point that the use of cause-condition- effect networks will only serve to identify the potential impacts that a project may generate and do not consider the actual environmental conditions that characterize the project location. In order to assess actual impact in a location context, the network identification of terminal effects must be related to the environmental conditions. We begin by asking, "What will be the intensity and distrihution of changes in the actual conditions constituting the environmental system of the project area?"

This question brings me to the second part of this paper which is assessing the significance of possible environmental condition changes on the actual functioning of a region's environmental, social, and economic systems. This bears directly on the situation that environmental impact statements are rarely prepared in conjunction with any ongoing regional environmental planning or research programs. Generally this is due to the lack of comprehensive environmental planning programs. The proponent or reviewers impact assessment of how the project might change environmental conditions on a system-wide basis presently depends on sparse amounts of known environmental information or on a rush job of collected original information.Therefore, it can not be expected that an environmental impact state'-en: will be comprehensively related to the regions environmental or soafal system. Because the environmental impact statement is presently conducted .1% an incremental exercise, and not as part of a comprehensive planning program, the impact assessment will fail to comprehend the threshold point where many apparently insignificant environmental conditions changes will reach a cumulative level that will result in irreversible degradation of on' or more desirable environmental characteristics. As the saying goes, "We do not know our capabilities until we have exceeded them."What appears to be needed are regional environmental assessment and planning programs that will be able to integrate with and give comprehensiveness to the impact statement process.

Regional governments and associations that have been designated as metropolitan clearinghouses have the authority to review and comment on impact statements. These regional authorities are in a unique and extremely strategic position in respect to reviewing and passing comment on impact statements. Their regional perspective of environmental systems and their comprehensive planning orientation gives them the logical responsibility to function as environmental information centers. A regional perspective would also give them the ability to look at the projects total program as well as the individual project--to avoid the 102

piecemeal problem mentioned yesterday. They should take advantage of this unique position.

There are a considerable number of regions in existence that are already conducting environmental planning programs and I would anticipate that many more areas in the United States will develop programs as the movement for regional comprehension of environmental systems gains acceptance and more states pass their own environmental policy acts. California and five other states have done so which brings to mind another question. Will the operation of state and federal environmental policy acts integrate or be a duplication of effort?

In California we are currently involved in setting up environmental planning programs for two regional associations and have just completed a planning program for a regional agency. Our experience with these regional organizations indicates that an effective environmental planning program should include the following programs;

The most basic and perhaps least difficult program to undertake would be the mapping of all known spatially definable environmental conditions that are likely to impact or be impacted by a region's probable project types. These environmental conditions are then categorized as either constraints to project development or environmental asset ". Constraints are those conditions which either pose a hazard to project development or will be adversely impacted by the project (i.e. landslide- slump prone areas or areas of low air pollution assimilation capacity). Assets include desirable environmental qualities such as areas of excep- tional scenic quality or productive wildlife habitats which should be protected against adverse impact.

Additionally, if environmental conditions were computer mapped, they could be quickly portrayed by a regional agency at the time a project is proposed. In essence, the condition mapping is intended to provide the capability of evaluating the relevance of the terminal effects from the impact identification procedure to the actual locational characteristics of the project. An example would be when the environmental impact identification procedure depicted salt water intrusion as a terminal effect of a project, and the environmental condition maps reveal that the project location area is over a ground water reservoir and includes a wetland wildlife habitat that would be intolerant of a salinity increase. The obvi,lus conclusion would be that the project could have a significant salt water intrusion impact and should be studied in greater detail to more accurately assess the specific consequences.

Computer mapping of environmental conditions has also proven to be of value in depicting the scarcity or uniqueness of environmental assets such as indicating that an area is one of two in the region that has a scenic view, indigenous vegetation within 1/2 hour's access from the central city. Generally, the greater the uniqueness of an environmental asset, the greater would be the significance of an adverse impact upon it by a project's actions.

A second program is to study a region according to a land capability analysis. Land capability is the basis for regional comparison and

c1 103 evaluation of the sensitivity of the land to various kinds of condition changes (disturbances), the magnitude of impact, and the ability of the land to - ecover from such condition changes.The capability analysis is based on the information in the environmental condition mapping program just mentioned. The objective of land capability analysis is to distribute the coverage and intensity of environmental impact (i.e., percentage of impervious surfacing) on a region-wide basis in order to maintain a desirable level of environmental characteristic (lake clarity). Probably the most successful illustratior of this procedure is the Lake Tahoe Region Plan. The success of the land capability analysis procedure at Tahoe is attributable to the strength of the impact network developed by impervious surfacing-erosion-sedimentation-lake discoloration and eutrophication. The main problem in applying capability analysis to regional planning has been the lack of quantitative information on the sensitivity of environmental conditions to project activities.

The lack of quantifiable information on environmental condition response to project actions relates directly to a third program for a regional environmental planning program.

A region should support research on environmental condition interaction in those resource systems particularly sensitive to degradation by the actions of potential projects. Investigation should also be made of rhea possibility of developing simulation models or other pre- dictive deices thr,t would indicate the relationship between a change in level of one environmental condition and the consequent impact on the entire environmental system.

A fourth program would be for the region, be it at the state, multi-county, or county level, to develop explicit policies for maintaining environmental values vis-a-vis social and economic considerations.

A regional planning program should be designed to have the ability of evaluating project alternatives, including the no project alternative. The consideration of the no project alternative has become a statement of why the project is needed.The statement of need is either a description of the projects benefits (such as employment tax base, economic growth, housing stock, recreational potential) cr the projects costs if not allowed as (flood costs, highway congestion, higher power rates), I believe the question, "Do we really need this project--in respect to both the benefits described and the environmental impacts identified?", will become the dominant consideration in the impact statement review process. A regional planning organization should be able to comment on how the social-economic benefits or costs of project are compatible/incompatible with regional plans and policies. A particularly knotty question here will be to identify what sectors of society will be benefited or disbene- fited by the project. If the regional planning organization decides that the project is desirable on social and economic grounds, then do these social and economic benefits outweigh the costs associated with adverse environmental impact. The problem then is to add up the environment costs, many of which, as we know, are subjective and not directly quantifiable. Here, I believe, the regional organization must play a key role by ascribing value criteria to subjective environmental qualities. The region should have adopted policies based on the broad 104

expression of public interest in specific environmental qualities such as: keep Tahoe blue, keep agricultural lands in open space use, preserve endangered species. In the final analysis impact assessment will be a question of whetner the net worth of protecting the threatened environmental quality values is at least equal to foregoing the benefits or incurring the costs of not allowing the project. This, as we have seen, is usually a political decision.

To end on a note of hard reality, I will say that no matter how much information or how many procedures are brought to bear in impact assessment, there will always be irreconcilable differences in values which can only be resolved in the political arena.

4. 105

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Environmental Protection Agency, Region IX. Environmental Impact Review Guidelines for Sewerage Facilities. (draft) 8 p.

Leopold, Luna B., Frank E. Clarke, Bruce B. Ilanshaw, and James R. Balsley, 1971. A Procedure for Evaluating Environmental Impact. U. S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey Circtilzr 645. 13 p.

Pacific Northwest Laboratories. 1971. Research Report on Shoreland Management Guidelines to Grays Harbor Regional Planning Commission. Battelle Memorial Institute, Richland, Washington.

Sorensen, Jens C. and James E. Pepper.A Procedure for Regional Clearinghouse Review of Environmental Impact Statements. Phase I. (Mimeo prepared for the Association of Bay Area Governments).

Sorensen, Jens C. 1971. A Framework for Identification and Control of Resource Degradation and Conflict in the Multiple Use of the Coastal Zone. Master's Thesis, University of California, Department of Landscape Architecture, Berkeley. ftate of California. Assembly Committee on Environmental Quality. 1971. Proposed Interim Guidelines for the Preparation and Evaluation of Environmental Impact Staements under the California Environmental Quality Act. (draft).

State of California. Office of the Secretary for Resources. 1971. Interim Guidelines for the Preparation and Evaluation of Environ- mental Impact Statements under the California Environmental. Quality Act of 1970. (draft).

U. S. Department of the Army. Office of the Chief of Engineers. 1971. Water Resources Policies and Authorities. Preparation and Schedul- ing of Environmental Statements. Circular No. 1165-2-98. U. S. Dept. of the Army, Washington, D.C.

U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Region IX. 1971. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 -- Region IX Implementa- tion. Circular S. F. 1390.1A. U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, San Francisco, Calif.

U. S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey and U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology. 1971. Program Design. 1971. San Francisco Bay Region Environment and Resources Planning Study. Geological Sufvey, Menlo Park, California. 123 p.

U. S. Department of the Navy. Office of the Chief of Naval Ope.:ations. 1971. The National Environmental Policy Act and Environmental Impact Statements; policy regarding and assigmmett of responsibilities. (draft).

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U. S. Department of the Navy. U. S. Naval Station.Treasure Island, California. Environmental Impact Statement Workshop Summary. 1971.

U. S. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration. 1971. Policy and Procedure Memorandum. Transmittal 202, August 24, 197. Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C. 107

EVALUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT THROUGH A COMPUTER MODELLING PROCESS

Thomas M. Krauskopf Dennis C. Runde Graduate Researchers Environmental Awareness Center University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Environmental Awareness Cerrer of the University of Wisconsin operates under the philosophy that concern for environmental impact should be an integral part of the planning and design process. Too often, environmental impact is considered only after location and design decisions are final. An impact statement, then, may serve only to justify the project and to mitigate criticism.Even if the statement is honest, and thorough, it becomes highly suspect.

A procedure is therefore needed which brings concern of environmental interaction into the policy-making and planning processes. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 requires, in part that:

. . . all agencies of the Federal Government shall

A. Utilize a systematic interdisciplinary approach which will insure the integrated use of the natural and social sciences and the environmental design arts in planning and in decision-mak'lg which may have an impact on man's environment;

B. Identify and develop methods and procedures, in consultation with the Council on Environmental Quality established by title II of this Act, which will insure that presently unquantified environmental amenities and values may be given appropriate consideration in decision-making along with economic and technical considerations.

C. Include in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on --

(i) the environmental impact of the proposed action, (ii) any adverse environmental affects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented, (iii) Alternatives to the proposed action,

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(iv) the relationship between local short- term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity and (v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented.

D. Study, develop, and describe appropriate alternatives to recommended courses of action in any proposal which involves unresolved conflicts concerning alter-

native uses of available resources . . ."

Beyond the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, the diversity and uniqueness of a resource and affects occurring beyond the immediate vicinity of the facility need to be considered within the context of environmental impact. The maintenance of diversity, whether biological, physical, or cultural, is critical not .xly to the continued functionings of ecological systems but to the fulfillment And psychological well-being of man as well. Impact upon a scarce resource is important not only because of potential loss of that resource but also due to the resultant decline in diversity of the system.

A new facility will often create environmental impact beyond the local zone of disturbance. For example, the construction of Interstate Highway 57 will require large quantities of sand and gravel.One of the probable local sources is a large esker. In the region, this is a unique sinuous glacial landform of aesthetic and scientific value. The esker has already been mined out over the majority of its length.A portion remains, where it cuts through a major wetland. Limited extraction has taken place. However, demand for highway construction materials would probably result in its total destruction. This type of resource needs to be identified and, if possible, protected. A proper highway environmental impact statement should make this clear.

The process, developed under the direction of Bernard J. Niemann, Jr., Associate Professor and Allen H. Miller, Assistant Professor, by the University of Wisconsin. Environmental Awareness Center and applied to the problem of locating an Interstate Highway, begins to fulfill these requirements.

The Regional Envircrmental anagement Allocation Process (HEMP) applies existing computer technology in a way which: 1. brings the consideration of environmer.tal impact into the primary decision-making process, 2. integrates multidisciplinary values and exp-ertise, 3. makes the decision-making process explicit--allowing for documentation of the considerations or basis upon which decisions are made, and 4. comparas quantitativel;, the impacts of the numerous alternative solutions.

REMAP is designed as a four-phase process consisting of:

1. Data Bank Development 2. Determinant Establishment

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3. Alternative Representation 4. Alternative Analysis and Selection

Data Bank Development

Use of a computer storage system requires the relating of areas of uniform size and shape. For this reason, the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection was selected as :le data reference and storage system, allowing data to be stored by the computer on a cellular basis.

Development of a data list is undertaken with the philosophy of building a varier data set which will allow for multiple variable combinations and interpretations affecting project location. Further, data selected is objective rather than interpreted (soils, for instance, are stored by type rather than suitability for a certain use). This allows data to be used in varied models.

The list of data chosen must be tailored to the region under study. A list derived for the mountains or deserts of the western United States will not be suited to the glaciated landscape of Wisconsin.

There is a potential to include listing of various landscape units. The natural landscape can be logically divided into units based on a hydrological hierarchy, resulting in classification of an area into major river basins, minor river basins, etc., and finally into watersheds or sub-watersheds. It is feasible to recall data on a unit basis. It would therefore be possible to analyze data for any given watershed unit or number of watershed units. Other unit manipulations can be made available based upon a cultural hierarchy including governmental units: counties, townships, etc.: education units:school districts; and regional planning units, to name a few. Potentially, data can be recalled and analyzed by unit, which would allow counties, governmental agencies or planning commissions to use a central data bank. Inter-agency sharing of data collection costs and use would assist units in planning more responsibly and economically.

Data listing alteration and refinement are continued throughout the extraction phase of the study. The establishment of the initial hierarchy allows for adjustment and addition without redundancy. This flexibility is an absolute necessity, since it allows the time-consuming process of data extraction begin before the list of data-variables is finalized. The resultant structure is presented in outline form as follows:

VARIABLE LISTING STRUCTURE INTERSTATE CORRIDOR SELECTION STUDY

NATURAL CHARACTERISTICS

1. Hydrological systems 2. Ecological systems 3. Physiographical systems 4. Pedological Systems

if 9 110

CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS

1. Existing land use systems 2. Prcjected land rise systems 3. Population distribution systems 4. Communications systems

At present the Environmental Awareness Center's data banks have utilized information extracted and stored on a per cent of cell or number per cell basis; utilizing a predetermined cell size.Cell size is determine) by two factors: 1. the scale of the project decision to be made, and 2. the size of the variable patterns utilized--the cell size must be small enough to be sensitive to the changes in landscape patterns.

Under construction is a data bank in which variables will be stored by their patterns, upon which any appropriate cell size may be super- imposed. Extraction and storage by pattern is especially well suited for the use of remote sensing imagery as a data source. Thermal scan imagery and highflight color and color infrared aerial photography are being used at present. In the future, imagery from Earth Resource Technology Satellites will be utilized.

Determinant Establishment

The second phase consists of construction of sets of factors which should influence the location of the facility under examination. Objec- tivity is, again, desired throughout the phase. A list of determinants is constructed by an interdisciplinary team made up of representatives of participating agencies. The establishment of determinants by an interactive agency process begins to meet the objectives of utilizing interdisciplinary inputs and providing multidisciplinary data.

In the case of REMAP, ten determinants have been selected which should influence highway location. These are based on concise, non- overlapping definitions.

Determinant List

1. Engineering Difficulty: A measure of compatibility between the landscape and highway design standards to minimize the engineering difficulty required to construct the interstate.

2. Cost of Construction: A measure of relative construction costs including structures, sub-grade preparation and special engineering problems to minimize financial investment.

3. Cost of Acquisition: A measure of relative cost coincident to the procurement of land for the right- of-way including land and relocation expenditures to minimize financial investment.

119 4. Projected Traffic Generation: A relative measure of potential traffic generated by projected urban and recreational centers.

5. Impact on the Cultural System: The disruption by the highway of residential units and incompatibility with existing and proposed land uses.

6. Impact on the Ecological System: The impact by the highway on the ecological system based on the ability of the resources to recur:, to their previous state.

7. Impact on Quality Agricultural Land: The impact by the highway on potentially productive agricultural land based upon the capability of the land and its current uses.

8. Scenic Potential:The maximization of the landscape's potential to depict the rural Wisconsin scene at interstate designed speeds through identification of scenic resources and evaluation of the ability to see from the highway.

9. Impact on Recreation and Conservation Lands:The impact by the highway upon lands of potential recreational and conservation use based upon the inherent qualitieF of the landscape and its existing and proposed uses.

10. Development of Joint Communications Corridors: The maximization of potential development of a joint communication corridor based on the functional capabilities of the various communisations networks.

Each determinant is represented by a lirear model. Models are constructed through a series of steps. First, those data-variables which should influence each determinant are ,isted. Next, considering each determinant separately, variables are grouped by system type to form components. A component, therefore, consists of a group of variables which exert a like influence on the determinant. Finally, a weighting process is carried out.

The weighting process relies upon the experience of specialists to determine the relative influence of variables within the systems under consideration. Variables are weighted relative to their influence within a component. These weights are expressed as coefficients, which are generally applied to the per cent of the variable within a cell.However, in some cases the weight is applied to the number of occurrences of a variable within a cell--as in the case of the number of housing units.

The amount of influence of each component can be described wither as a per cent of the total problem or as the magnitude of influence of the component relative to the other components in the determinant. The coefficient is applied to the derived component value. REMAP coefficients were applied placing greater weight on variables and components more

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restrictive to highway location.Var.ables favorable to highway location were weighted negatively. This results in the loweit value cells being the most favorable to highway location.

In order that subsystems of the modelling proces-. ray be inter- related, a normalization process was performed at each level to bring derived values to a uniform base.Normalization is applied on an "a priori" basis. Thus, consistency on both an inter- and intra-data bank basis may be obtained.

When completed and applied to the data bank, the determinant modelling process results in the creation of a spatial value surface for each determinant.This surface is stored by the compater and may be displayed in the form of a symbolic map of the study area. HiOegt value cells represented by the most dense print character indicate areas most restrictive to highway location under the criteria considered.

Alternative Representation

Continuation of the modelling process allows combination of the determinants to form alternative surfaces upon which an optimum location may be found.

Since the determinants reflect only specilie location factors, it is necessary that they be combined. The same process is utilized to combine components into determinants.

How important each determinant is to the final location of facility is a subjective decision as opposed to the relatively objective construction of determinants.The importance given each determinant will differ among individuals, interest groups, organizations, and agencies and represents a policy decision. Through weighting of the determinants, various strategies for alternative creation may be expressed. At this stage, opinions can freely interact with the process and the resulting value surfaces displayed for analysis.

Since each alternative is the end product of a linear model, a final coefficient for each variable in the system exists which takes into account the interaction of the determinants. This coefficient represents the actual influence of the variable upon the particular alternative model. Thus, documentation of which elements actually had the greatest influence upon any one alternative is possible.

Each cell value on the alternative surface represents the effective cost of a corridor affecting the entire cell. If the corridor affects less than the whole cell, then the effective cost is that fraction of the cell affected, times the cost of the entire cell. The total affec- tive cost of a route is the sum of the costs for each of the individual cells affected.

Upon each alternative surface, a minimum route representing the least cost path between two points in terms of total values, may be located automatically. A program, called Line Finder, has been 113

developed which uses dynamic programming to consider the effective cost of all possible corridors connecting two points, and then prints out the lowest effective cost corridor

Upon comparing the "line finder" routes with manually drawn ones for the same surfaces, it was found that the routes did not agree. There appears to be a difference in the concept of what was to be minimized. The program pays attention not to the cost of individual cells, but to the cost of the entire route. The human seems to try to avoid going through the high-valued cells. That is, when the human is given a choice between going through one high-valued cell and two lower-valued cells which have an aggregate valve greater than the single high-valued cell, he tends to go through the two low-valued cells. The ecologist or naturalist can justify this stretegy in the following way. It is important in locating a highway to save the ecological or natural resources. A cell containing either an extremely important natural or cultural resource, or containing a large number of lower valued resources, is subjectively more important than the addit;ve weight of that cell.

The Line Finder was modified in order to try and simulate the human decision strategy. Values for each of the cells in each alternative surface were squared, and the regular route finder algorithm was applied. The agreement between the program generated line and the human one indicates that we have captured the essence of what the human is trying to optimize.

These routes conform closely to those drawn manually. The advantage of the automated line finder lies in its utilization of the actual values rather than the symbols on a map which represent ranges of value; also the automated system considers all possible routes to find the minimum.

Alternative Analysis

Any alternative route may be placed on any alternative or determinant surface and its effective cost found for that surface. How much a route deviates from the minimum possible route under a given set of criteria can then be obtained. Utilizing this technique it was possible to show that the routes put forward by the Wisconsin Division of Highways were responding primarily to construction cost and acquisition cost. With this procedure, it may be possible to find a route which deviates little from minimum cost for all of what are determined to be primary alternative surfaces.

To generate an alternative, a policy maker should be considering the relative importance of the cost of construction, the impact on the cultural system, the impact on the ecological system and the other determinants relative to the decision of highway corridor location. For each alternative created by the policy maker, a different optimum corridor will be generated by the Line Finder.This way of looking at the problem of corridor location is suitable for the designer, but not for the writer of the impact statement.

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The purpose of the impact statement is to detail the effective costs for each corridor under consideration. A set of well-written impact statements, one for each proposed corridor, allows a decision maker to decide which corridor is best in terms of the public good and to defend that corridor.

Most of the data stored in the data bank for each cell, is in terms of per cent of cell occupied by that resource. For example, for a particular cell, 50% of the cell may be used for agriculture crops, 25% for livestock pasturage, 5% for town roads, and 20% for rural residential dwellings. In addition, 100% of the cell may be soil type B2, 75% of the cell may have a slope of 0-2%, and 25Z may have a slope of 3-6%. The per cent of cell occupied by every resource is stored for each cell in the study area. These percentages can be converted to acreages. Ii given the exact location and width of a corridor, the fraction of every cell occupied by that corridor may be determined. From this information, the total acreage for each resource impacted by the corridor may be calculated. rite impact statement for each corridor arrived at by this method is a quantification of the number of acres of agricultural crop lands, livestock pastural lands, rural residential land, etc., that will he impacted.

Any route or location, whether generated within the system or developed independently, may be stored by the computer and analyzed on the basis of resource impacted. Further, the resources whicn lie at any distance from a proposed route may he identified.The distance of impact extends beyond the right-of-way and the sensitivity on the resource may be considered. In this way it is possible to calculate to what extent resource systems lie within zones of various impacts.

The impact program has been utilized to quantify and compare the affects of various alternative interstate routes developed by the Environmental Awareness Center and the Wisconsin Division of Highways. A condensation of the analysis of these routes, which was presented at a public hearing in December 1971, appears in the sti?plements.

SupplemenL 1 shows the proposed routes. Routes 1 and 2 are routes from Saukville to Green Bay and routes 3, 4, and 5 use an existing route from Saukville to Sheboygan, and then connects Sheboygan and Green Bay.

Supplement 2 shows a summary of the land use for the five routes. The least expensive route is taken as a standard, and the other routes are shown as the per cent increase in cost o"er the standard. The impact width is 0.1 km, which is the width of the highway right-of-way. The impact of the highway is greater than just the land that it occupies, it also impacts adjacent land. The impact on this adjacent land can be found by running the impact program with a greater width. Supplement 3 shows a similar summary for the natural resources with an impact width of 1.0 km.

"Of importance is the increased impact to the natural resources. Corridor 3 of the Easterly Alternatives is both the shortest route and affects the least quantity of natural resources and is therefore used as the 'measuring stick.' Corridor 1 (a Center Alternative) from

113 115

Saukville to Bellevue, while being 60% longer, affects 229% more natural resources. Corridor 2 (a Center Alternative) somewhat shorter yet 50% longer than Corridor 3 affects 320% as many resources as Corridor 3. The use of U. S. 141 to Sheboygan, already to Interstate standards, as part of the Interstate system very clearly lessens impact due solely to the reduced length and need of additional construction. Corridor 4 (an Easterly Alternative), the westerly proposed corridor is only 3% longer than Corridor 3, yet it affects 54% more natural resources and Corridor 5, 9% longer, affects 69% more resources."Corridors 1 and 3 were developed through the REMAP process.

On the basis of a statement such as this, which quantifies the impact, one is in a position to: 1. decide whether the need for a highway is greater than its cost in terms of natural resources, and 2.to decide between different alternative corridors.

Environmental Impact Planning

The REMAP process is designed to 5e flexible. For this reason it may be applied to a broad spectrum of planning, location, resource allocation, and design problems. Once a data bank is constructed, it can be applied to any appropriate problem. In addition to being used to locate a highway, this process is presently being used to locate electric power transmission lines. On a demonstration basis, it has been used to locate new cities.

Model structure may be simple or complex. It is designed to solve a specific problem and its sophistication is determined by the user. Because of these characteristics, a data bank can be developed and has the potential of being utilized by several agencies working in the same region.

Summary

In summary, the REMAP process:

1. Integrates concern for environmental impact into the initial planning location process.

2. Integrates multidisciplinary values and expertise.

3. Provides an interdisciplinary data bank.

4. Allows for quantitative documentation of the consideration given each factor during each phase of the planning process.

5. Gives quantification of the influence of each variable upon the final model.

6. Allows for rapid development of alternative solutions.

7. Provides a means for rapid analysis of alternatives whether generated within the system or apart from it.

8. Provides quantification of the amount if resources impacted.

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Supplement 1

PROPOSED CORRIDOR ALTERNATIVES

1 -- Saukville to Green Bay STH 57 + EAC Central Refined (EAC)

2 -- Saukville to Bellevue (Division of Highways)

3 -- Sheboygan -- Ecological Consideration (EAC)

4 -- Manitowoc Alternative (Division of Highways)

5 -- U. S. 141 Modified (Division of Highways)

( ) STH 57 Saukville to Split from EAC Central Refined (Part of no.1 above)

The originating agency follows the route name. 117

Supplement 2 IMPACT WIDTH .1 km A Comparison of Physical QUANTITY IN ACRES Taking -- Land Use

RESOURCE CORRIDOR ALTERNATIVES 1 2 3 4 5

Agriculture 2515.68 2346.68 1700.25 1704.22 1728.51

Institutional 4.46 1.53 4.48 3.45 6.47

Recreational/ Conservation 116.88 107.37 .60 .04 14.89

Industrial 6.26 4.20 2.70 1.53 6.03

Commercial 18.99 11.84 4.24 3.86 11.03

Urban .10 .00 .07 2.57 11.50

Suburban 5.98 .74 2.47 1.62 5.30

Vacation .54 .74 .00 .00 .00

Rural .59 1.17 3.66 1.33 22.33

Barren Land 231.16 178.72 116.56 140.33 189.28

TOTAL 2900.64 2655.00 1835.40 1858.90 1995.30

I Increase 582 452 002 12 92

Length in KM (127.94) (122.38) (79.21) (83.56) (87.11)

Length in M 76.8 73.4 47.5 50.1 52.3

2 Increase 622 552 002 52 102

Mean Increase 602 502 002 32 92

11 118

Supplement 3 A Comparison of IMPACT WIDTH 1 km Significant Impact on QUANTITY IN ACRES Natural Resources

RESOURCE CORRIDOR ALTERNATIVES 1 2 3 4 5

Intermittent Streams 128.86 141.85 85.35 100.31 172.84

Streams 45.77 44.34 9.28 52.79 83 19

Minor River 94.70 89.08 10.52 14.85 20.93

Major River 29.98 4.95 .00 .00 .00

Pond or Lake Less than 50 acres 58.81 51.36 12.57 49.50 7.32

Lake 19.80 7.42 .00 .00 .00

Upland Forest 1962.54 2441.23 836.52 1307.04 1315.40

Lowland Forest 1526.56 2173.31 556.32 6,1.81 639.39

Open Swamp 235.23 25'.17 64.23 135.49 81.06

21 + % 530.75 1076.67 184.10 374.27 540.95

Recreational/ Conservation 1174.95 1089.89 5.98 3.71 127.21

TOTAL 5807.95 7414.27 1764.87 2724.27 2988.19

Per Cent Increase 229.1% 320.2% 00% 45.42 69%

117 119

Supplement 4

REMAP DATA (VARIABLE) STORAGE 12 May 1971

000-099 LANDSCAPE UNITS

000-049 NATURAL UNITS

001 Watersheds

050-099 CULTURAL UNITS

050 Study Area 070 Counties 071 Townships 072 Corporate Limits 073 Extra-Territorial Limits

100-299 NATURAL CHARACTERISTICS

100-139 HYDROLOGIC SYSTEM

100 Watershed Order 105 Intermittent Streams 110 Streams 115 Minor Rivers 120 Major Rivers 125 Ponds 130 Lake - 50 acres 131 Lake 132 Fish Habitat

140-149 CLIMATOLOGICAL SYSTEM

140 Mean Annual Snowfall 141 Greatest Daily Precipitation 142 Number of Days 90°F or Greater 143 Number of Days 32°F or Less

150-199 ECOLOGIC SYSTEM

151 Upland Hardwoods 152 Hardwoods with Hemlock 153 Hardwoods with Conifers 154 White Pine 155 Popple with White Birch 156 Oak Hickory 157 Pin Cherry 158 Norway Pine 159 Birch 160 Swamp Hardwoods 161 White Cedar 119 120

162 Tamarack 163 Black Spruce 164 Balsam 170 Shrub Carr 171 Marsh 180 Red Cedar

200-249 PHYSIOGRAPHIC SYSTEM

200 Centroid Elevation 201 Center East Elevation 202 Center South Elevation 203 Center West Elevation 204 Center North Elevation 210 0-2; Slope 211 3-6;; Slope 212 7-12% Slope 213 13-20% Slope 214 21Z and Greater

250-299 PEDOLOGIC SYSTEM

250 Soil Association 261 Escarpment 262 Esker 263 Drumlin

300-499 CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS

300-324 RESIDENTIAL SYSTEM

300 Residential-Rural 301 Residential-Recreation 302 Residential-Suburban 303 Residential-Urban 310 Proposed Residential 315 Residential Units-Agricultural 316 Residential Units-Rural 317 Residential Units-Vacation 318 Residential Units-Suburban 319 Residential Units-Urban

325-349 COMERCIAL SYSTEM

325 Commercial-Limited 328 Commercial-General 330 Proposed Commercial 43 Commercial Units

350-374 INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM

350 Industrial-Light 351 Industrial-Extractive 353 Industrial-Heavy

119 121

360 Proposed Industrial 370 Industrial Units

375-399 COMUNICATION SYSTEM

375 Communication-Interchange 376 Communication-Air Field 377 Communication-Rail Terminal 382 Communication-Federal Highway 383 Communication-State Highway 384 Communication-County Highway 385 Communication-Local Roadway 386 Communication-Railway 387 Communication-Power Transmission Line 388 Communication-High Pressure oil Lint. 389 Communication-Gas Line 390 Communication - Telephone Cable 391 Communication-Proposed Principal Arterial 392 Communication-Proposed Primary Arterial 393 Communication-Proposed Standard Arterial 394 Communication-Proposed Minor Arterial 395 Communication-Proposed Collector

400-424 INSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM

400 Institutional-Religious 405 Institutional Medical Related 410 Institutional-Educational 415 Institutional - Governmental 420 Proposed Institutional 421 Institutional Units

425-449 AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM

425 Agricultural-Crops 426 Agricultural-Livestock 427 Agricultural-Fur, Game, Poultry 428 Agricultural-Plantation 429 Agricultural- 430 Agricultural-Platting

450-499 RECREATIONAL SYSTEM

451 Recreation-Wayside 452 Recreation-County Park 454 Recreation-Local Park 456 Recreation-State Forest 458 Recreation-Local Forest 460 Recreation-Organized Public - Private Activity 461 Recreation-Public Hunting or Fishing Grounds 462 Recreation-Wildlife Preserve 464 Recreation-Scientific Area 470 Recreation-Environmental Corridors 471 Recreation-River/Lake Zoning 122

472 Recreation-Scenic Easement 475 Recreation-Scenic Highways 480 Proposed Recreation 481 Proposed Scientific Area 482 %.:creation-intrinsic Resources/Wildlife 483 Recreation-Intrinsic Resources/Vegetation 484 Recreation - Intrinsic Resources/Physiographic 485 Recreation-Intrinsic Resources/Wetland 486 Recreation - Intrinsic Resources/Water 487 Recreation- Extrinsic Resources/Topographic Associated Structure, 488 Recreation-Extrinsic Resources/Camps, Trails, and Accomrodations 489 Recreation-xtrinsic Resources/Water Assoclitcd Sports and Tacilith 490 Recreation-Extrinsic Resources/Winter :;port, Facilities 491 Recreation-Extrinsic Resources/Publicly or Pri- vately owned land and Associated Clubs 492 Recreation-Extrinsic Resources /Water Associated Projects 493 Recreation-Extrinsic Resources/Wildlife and Conservation 494 Recreation-Extrinsic Resoutces/Historic Structure 495 Recreation-Extrinsic Resources/Historic Feature 496 Recreation-Extrinsic Resources/Cultural Structure 497 Recreation-Extrinsic Resources/Cultural Feature 499 No Discernable Use

500-699 GENERATED DATA

500 Stream N-S Orientation 501 Stream SE -SW Orientation 502 Stream E-W Orientation 503 Stream SE-NW Orientation 504 Stream Random Orientation 510 Minor River N-S Orientation 511 Minor River SE -SW Orientation 512 Minor River E-W Orientation 513 Minor River SE-NW Orientation 514 Minor River Random Orientation 520 Major River N-S Orientation 521 Major River NE-SW Orientation 522 Major River E-W Orientation 523 Major River SE-NW Orientation 524 Major River Random Orientation 530 Stream - Without Game Fish 531 Stream - Trout 532 Stream - Small mouth Bass 533 Stream - Panfish 534 Stream - Walleye/Muskellunge 540 Minor River - Without Game Fish 541 Minor River - Trout in I 123

542 Minor River - Small mouth Bass 543 Minor River - Panfish 544 Minor River - Walleye/Muskellunge 550 Major River - Without Game Fish 551 Major River - Trout 552 Major River - Small mouth Bass 553 Major River - Panfish 554 Major River - Walleye/Muskellunge 560 Lake-50 Acres (-) Without Game Fish 561 Lake-50 Acres (-) Trout 562 Lake-50 Acres (-) Small mouth Bass 563 Lake-50 Acres (-) Panfish 564 Lake-50 Acres (-) Walleye/Muskellunge 570 Lake - Without Game Fish 571 Lake - Trout 572 Lake - Small mouth Bass 573 Lake - Panfish 574 Lake - Walleye/Muskellunge 580 Soil Suitability as Subgrade 581 Soil Erodibility Potential 582 Soil Productivity Potential 600 Highway Intersections 610 Federal Highway - N-S Orientation 611 Federal Highway - NE-SW Orientation 612 Federal Highway - E-W Orientation 613 Federal Highway - SE-NW Orientation 614 Federal Highway - Random Orientation 620 State Highway - N-S Orientation 621 State Highway - NE-SW Orientation 622 State Highway - E-W Orientation 623 State Highway - SE-NW Orientation 624 State Highway - Random Orientation 630 County Highway - N-S Orientation 631 County Highway - NE-SW Orientation 632 County Highway - E-W Orientation 633 County Highway - SE-NW Orientation 634 county Highway - Random Orientation 640 Railway - N-S Orientation 641 Railway - NE-SW Orientation 642 Railway - E-W Orientation 643 Railway - SE-NW Orientation 644 Railway - Random Orientation 650 Power Transmission Line - N-S Orientation 651 Power Transmission Line - NE-SW Orientation 652 Power Transmission Line - E-W Orientation 653 Power Transmission Line - SE-NW Orientation 654 Power Transmission Line - Random Orientation 660 High Pressure Oil Line - N-S Orientation 661 High Pressure Oil Line - NE-SW Orientation 662 High Pressure Oil Line - E-W Orientation 663 High Pressure Oil Line - SE-NW Orientation 664 High Pressure Oil Line - Random Orientation 670 Gas Line - N-S Orientation 671 Gas Line - NE-SW Orientation 124

672 Gas Line - E-W Orientation 673 Gas Line - SE-NW Orientation 674 Gas Line - Random Orientation 680 Telephone Cable - N-S Orientation 681 Telephone Cable - NE-SW Orientation 682 Telephone Cable - E-W Orientation 683 Telephone Cable - SE-NW Orientation 684 Telephone Cable - Random Orientation

1.3 ALTERNATIVE CORRIDORS EVALUATED BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS CENTER

fiNIERSTATE

Corridors For Location Of The National System Of Interstate and Defense Highway Between the Cities of Milwaukee and Green Bay Saukville - Bellevue Section THE QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

David Jowett Associate Professor University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Introduction

In a number-oriented society such as ours there is little need to proclaim the importance of quantitative assessment in achieving insight into problems. But it is, I think, notable that the area of ecological impact has not so far been well served by numbers.More often than not, numbers have been used to raise, rather than lower, the emotional temper of debate. For example, irresponsible workers have quoted values of hundreds of thousands of births prevented by radio-active emissions, values which have certainly been arrived at in some cases by doubtful assumptions. However, perhaps some sense can be made of some situations some of the time by careful measurement, estimation and modelling.

Toxic Emissions

Until fairly recently, there was substantial agreement on what constituted safe quantities of toxic emissions. They should only represent a small fraction of naturally occurring levels. I would still adhere to this standard myself. Naturally occurring quantities can be surprisingly high. In the case of Mercury, Weiss et al., (1) estimate the gaseous flux to the air to be between 2.5 x 1010 and 1.5 x 1011 g/year, or between 25,000 and 150,000 metric tons. By water the flux from the continents is a maximum of 3.8 x 108, much less. Estimates of gaseous release through human activities are: in chloralkali production, 3 x 109 g; in cement manufacture, 108 g; in roasting sulfideores, 2 x 109 g (2); in burning fossil fuels, 1.6x 108 (3). Most of this ends up in the ocean, where it will be concentrated through organic food chains because of the affinity of heavy metal for protein.But surprisingly enough the residence time in the ocean is rather short. Weiss et al., (1) estimate the total mercury in surface waters to be 1012g, perhaps not much more than 10-20 years production. Using figures of Cloud (4), the total mercury in the whole ocean is about 7x 1013 g. If these figures are correct, then mercury must be disappearing rapidlyinto the bottom sediments. My purpose in quoting these figures is not to distract attention from locally serious mercury pollution, but toexem- plify in modern form the old adage that "a man must eata peck of dirt before he dies."

Of course, it is difficult for anybody to read of theeffects of mercury poisoning and maintain his equanimity. But it must be lone, for the hysterical approach will lead us to ruin.We might note in passing that mercury poisoning is certainly lesscommon nowadays than 50- 100 years ago, when many syphilitics (an astounding proportionof the adult 128

population were syphilitic) suffered from it, and Sinclair (5) reports that New York hatters were particularly hard hit by prohibition, for they needed whiskey to control their shakes before starting work.

Similar figures can be quoted for other problem substances released through human activity.Woodwell et al, (6) present figures which indicate that only about one-fourtieth of one years U.S. production of DDT is present in the total world biomass, in spite of the capacity of life to absorb and retain this substance.The rest is sequestered in some way, and the amount in the biomass will decline rapidly if use of DDT soon ceases. In the case of nitrogen, Kohl et al, (7) estimate that for an Illinois watershed, not less than 55% of nitrate in surface water is derived from farmer applied nitrogen. This does represent a doubling or even tripling of natural levels on this rich farm land, but then nitrate is not really a very toxic substance. For phosphate, the amounts are probably much less because of the ease and rapidity with which phosphate is fixed in soil.

Finally, let us review the question of radiation damage. In a recent letter, Hull (8) states that the current rate at which the U.S. public is exposed to medical X-rays is about 2 x 107 rems/year, which is comparable to natural background radiation.On the other hand, 1969 standards for nuclear power plants imply 40 rems/year/plant, incompara- bly less. Yet this standard has been successfully challenged. Now of course we are frightened that radiation may "strike our children yet unborn and unbegot. by damaging their, genetic endowment.But we should not strain at the gnat when we are prepared to swallow the camel.We are undoubtedly doing far more violence to our genetic future through the heroic efforts of medical science and welfare agencies to insure the reproductive potential of those unfortunate members of our society who are badly endowed genetically than ever we will do with radiation.

A problem with toxins is the idea of a safe dose. Recently, a leading toxicologist was quoted, somewhat disapprovingly, in Science to the effect that for every substance there is a lower level where it is innocuous, and an upper level where it is lethal. I find this statement unexceptional. A common way of assessing safe levels is to take the lowest level known to cause symptoms, and describe as safe one tenth (or even one hundredth) of that dose.The factors of ten and a hundred derive, one surmises, from the common observation that the distribution of death or damage in a population is approximately normally distributed if dose is measured on a logarithmic scale.

Problems of Measurement

I think we need to distinguish two classes of environmental impact, aesthetic and biological. Among aesthetic problems are the preservation of pleasing landforms, of ancient artefacts, and of rare but attractive species of plant and animal. The last is often proclaimed a biological problem, but it rarely is. Raven et al, (9) estimate that only about t. 10-15% of organic species are currently known to science, and of the remainder only 5% will become known before they become extinct through habitat destruction. It is in this light that I view the loss of the passenger pigeon with some equanimity.

126 129

Aesthetic judgments are susceptible to measurement.To indicate how this is achieved, I would like to introduce the scales of measurement commonly acknowledged by statisticians.These are nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. A nominal scale is simply a naming, where an item either possesses a property or it does not. The entries in the impact matrices of Jensen, discussed elsewhere at this meeting, are recorded on such a scale. An ordinal scale is one which places items in order, but with no suggestion that the difference between the first and second is of the same magnitude as that between the second and third.The Miss America finalists are measured on an ordinal scale. An interval scale does have the property that the intervals between numbers are constant, but numbers within these intervals are not defined. Thus if I flip a coin 9 times, I may get any integer number of heads between 0 and 9, but I cannot get 4.5 even though this is the expected number of heads. Note that an interval scale commonly results when nominal variables are summed. A rational scale is one on which all rational numbers are, in theory, achievable. A foot-rule is a simple example of such a scale.

Aesthetic judgments are at best ordinal. Note that this does not preclude fineness of scale (very fine judgments are achieved by judges at the Miss America pageant), nor statistical treatment. We can estimate agreement between ordinations, and discern differences. For a single individual or a well defined population, we can sum and average ordinations. Given enough data we might also begin to estimate the distances between points on the ordinal scale, thus approaching the informational content of a rational scale. But there is a difference, and if a person scores an object 1-10, he is using an ordinal scale, not an interval scale, and unfortunately his reference ordination is forever hidden in his own head.

This is no problem if everybody has the same reference scale, or if we wish to find some average for a well defined population. But for aesthetic judgments it is rare for either of these criteria to be met. Even for a single individual there is no constancy over time in aesthetic judgment.A tropic sunrise is very beautiful, but see very many and Kipling's imagery "An' the sun comes up like thunder" becomes a painful reality. Similarly, one may see Venice as an enchanting water wonderland or a stinking, fetid swamp. It depends a lot on how much money you have. In my native city of Liverpool there is an enormous neo-Greek pile of smoke blackened stone called St. Georges Hall, erected about 1840 by city fathers rich on slaves and cotton.A quarter century ago I was taught to despise it aesthetically as derivative, over-ornamented Victorian rubbish. I believe it is now the subject of a Government preservation order. Is it too great a step to the Lancashire colliery owner driving his guests to proudly view his spoil heap? "Where there's muck, there's money," they used to say.May we not again learn to take pride in the New York skyline, or admire the majesty of a like-shore power station, suitably sanctified by a century of use?

Having expressed my reservations at the processes involved, let us consider techniques for translating such judgments into practical terms. Again I will distinguish two classes of problem--land use classification and planning permission. The first is the problem of deciding what class of activity should or should not be permitted over a certain area. The second is concerned with deciding, in a particular instance, whether an

iy 130

activity conforms with previously determined land use guidelines. Given authority to use ones own complement of ordinal scales, the first problem is tackled by Making an exhaustive inventory of the resources of each area--scenic, agricultural, recreational, historic, etc. These are then mapped in such a way that areas richly endowed for specific uses emerge as different "colors." This necessitates differ- ential weighting of resources, for if we apply too large a weighting to agriculture, then the map of Iowa, say, will come out all black for agriculture. But by adjusting the weights, shades of blackness will become apparent, rather like correctly developing a photographic print. Now the maps for different classes of use can be overlaid.An area very black for recreation but pale for agriculture would enable us to wash out agriculture as a primary land use. I do not wish to minimize the technical difficulties, but they do seem amenable to solution. However, the operator who creates the map is skillfully interposing his own value judgments at every stage of the process, although these value judgments may subsequently meet with popular approval. And if an area scheduled for recreation subsequently turns out to be sitting on a billion bbls. of oil, then the work must be done over for the inputs to the map have changed. Similarly, other additions and develop- ments which are made to the landscape alter the map inputs.Such maps, or the data they incorporate, can be very valuable for one class of decision problems, exemplified by routing of a highway.Once it has been decided that two points are to be joined by a highway, computer techniques exist to route the highway in such a way as to minimize environmental impact. This seems first to have been done by McHarg. I would like to defer general consideration of planning permission until after reviewing my concept of the ecosystem.

The Ecosystem

The word ecosystem, like democracy and freedom, is one of those useful terms which cover a multitude of instances. Planet earth is clearly an ecosystem, and so is a grain of soil. But any view of an ecosystem implies multidimensionality.We could consider an ecosystem as a concatenation of organisms, each present in a characteristic amount. Imagine each type of organism as represented by a rectangular axis in hyperspace. Then some point or path in that space represents a distinct ecosystem. A characteristic of ecosystems is stability. (For a more scholarly discussion of much of what follows, see Lewontin (10).)

I will illustrate what I mean by stability with reference to a two species system, (Figure 1). We have a two dimensional space spanned by two rectangular co-ordinates, each representing one of the species. Imagine this space as being occupied by a saucer shaped depression, and a particular ecosystem by an ordinary glass marble. Disturb the marble and it will roll back to its point of stability at the bottom of the saucer. Of course, disturb it too much, and it will roll off the edge of the saucer (generally into some other saucer shaped region of stability). Alternatively, there may be no stable point, but only a stable path. At any point in the depression, the

1 131

Figure 1

Conceptual View of the Ecosystem

Amount of

Species 1 Steady Path

Steady State

Amount of Species 2 marble is rolling to some other point, but the path it describes is smooth and unchanging. If disturbed from this path it will return to it, again unless the disturbance is so great that it enters a new stable path. Predator-prey relationships are of this type. Remember, though, that real ecosystems exist in multidimensional, not two dimensional space.

A benevolent environmental impact is one which does not permanently divert the marble from its appointed place or track.A truly malevolent impact sends the marble cascading down a track which includes no steady state, like Columbus sailing off the edge of the world. In between are moves into some new steady state, although we have a suspicion that each such move carries us closer to that fatal edge.However, I would state categorically that this was not the case for the pre-industrial degradation of the primordial. British forest into grazing and arable. A new, more diverse, and many we Id consider a more beautiful, steady state was the result of that particular essay in environmental degradation.

Now this species system exists only in relation to another multidimensional system of environmental. conditions--temperature, pH, moisture, nutrients, toxins, etc. It is changes in these conditions which impact 132 on organismal stability. However, ecosystems are strongly buffered against such changes, partly by their ability to transform them, partly by their ability to move to a new steady state and partly by the considerable redundancy that exists in the species/niche relationship (see e.g. Harper (11). Ecological niches tend to be occupied by many species, and it is in this regard that biologically speaking, extinction of species is not too alarming, for other species occupying the niche will frequently expand to take up the slack. Each extinction, though, advances us a tiny step closer to the ultimate, irreversible degradation.

These two interacting systems are also interacting with at least two others, equally complex, the economic system and the political system. And it is clear to me that in these circumstances complete description and control is beyond our means.I believe it is fatal to attempt a careful and full description of what exists and what we are doing to it. The enormity of the task will lead to paralysis, of the kind sometimes expressed by Ehrlich, when for example he denigrates environmental clean-up with the statement "If you are traveling on the Titanic, you may as well go first class." If you are on the Titanic, the place to be is on the bridge. The iceberg could have been avoided if there had been a modest reduction in speed, and had a slight course correction been made a little sooner.

Statisticians are becoming accustomed to dealing with such multidimensional systems, and have evolved a range of techniques basically aimed at reducing the dimensionality. We generally find a great deal of intercorrelation in the system, and in these circumstances an adequate description can be obtained with much fewer variables. Perhaps a simple example will again make this clear.Imagine we have a large collection of a simple organism such as a clam. We may attempt to describe these clams by measuring length, breadth and thickness. if we now plot our data in a three-coordinate system, we will find that the points form a cigar-shaped form running from bottom left to the top right. The major axis of this ovoid represents the general factor of size, and the two minor axes very minor variations in shape.

Such simplifying single variables already exist for the systems we are discussing. Gross National Product is one, SOD is aunther. A third, for describing many species systems is the diversity index, D, derived from inbirmation theory

D ln pi where pi is the proportion of individuals of the ith species. This statistic gets larger as more and more species are equally represented, and declines as some species become rarer. For a fuller discussion, see e.g. Pielow (12).

I must hasten to point out that I do not consider these single variables to be a complete measure of the systems under study.They do, however, represent a lot of the variability, and fulfill the

in 0 133

Figure 2

Plot of Intercorrelated Data in Three-Space

requirement of paucity of parameters so beloved of scientists and so vital for decision makers.At present we do not have enough of these parameters, and we must redouble our efforts to find more. But it is interesting to me that the environmental problem closest to solution is water pollution, where BOD plays a critical part in description, and that political control of the economic process has been vastly improved in the last 40 years. In economics, a considerable array of good indicator variables is now available.

Environmental Impact Statements

The impact matrix of Leopold et al, (13) fails to meet my ideal criteria on two counts--impacts are measured on an ordinal scale, with no easy reference scale to which we can refer, and it is too big and unwieldy. It includes too much information to be readily absorbed, and because people differ so radically in their objective assessments it is 1 1 134

difficult for me to see how thousands of these thingscan be usefully summed, averaged, arranged, and rearranged, to obtainsome idea of overall impact of the multitudinous activities of mankind.

Indeed, it does seem to me that any such statement is likelyto be most useful in forcing industrialists to consider theeffects of their decisions on the environment. In the long run we may have to depend more on the intelligence and goodwill of the despoilersthan upon the efficiency of the enforcers, much as the police dependon the good behavior of the bulk of the populace. In a worse-ordered society, we would hang a few despoilers to make the point clear, ratheras, at the time of the American Revolution the British shot AdmiralItyng for removing his inferior fleet of rotting ships out ofrange of the French, elicting from Voltaire the remark that "theyshoot one to encourage the others."

Legal apparatus has always existed to enforce such usage, and could be strengthened. Humpstone (14) has recently traced the origin o: the suppression of nuisance from early common-law decisions, and it is a story of increasingly stringent restriction of activities which might earlier have been permitteu in the common good. But he also points out the dangers of arbitrarily imposed, stringently enforced standards. If a plant manager is permitted to operate on a 21 emission standard, he spends money to do so at his peril if this standardmay subsequently be unilaterally reduced, making his expensive plant obsolete. His best strategy, if the standard may be changed, is to fake it, or fight a delaying action through the courts. The British have forbidden noxious air pollution for almost a century, but only emissions beyond whatis necessary are forbidden. Inspectors discuss the feasibility of control with polluters, and the law operates in such away that an ancient, isolated plant may be permitted to pollute at a level totallyunaccept- able for a newer plant located in an urban environment. Amicable relationships exist between inspectors and plant managers, and onlythe most intransigent offenders are brought to court. With such a flexible procedure, in which the ultimate aim of zero emission is clearly stated, environmental impact statements might usefully represent evidenceas to whether, within the limits of current technology the polluter has done (or has not done!) the best he can.

In simple situations, such as producing ICBM's and space research, techniques of operations research, using crude values such as form the entries of impact matrices, have been effective. It is noteworthy that in the area of international conflict, a more complex situation but still simpler than environmental protection, such techniquesseem to have been an expensive failure. In making decisions under uncertainty, the possibility exists that there is no optimum decision. Truxall (15) outlines such a situation. A city mayor is faced with three possible strategies and must choose one.

A - Speed up trr.ffic flow B - Reduce air pollution C - Improve garbage collection.

132 135

Analysis yields the following equiprobable resilts for A

a - transportation improves gain = +4 1

a2 - no change gain = 0

a3 - more cars, more pollution, parking problems gain = -1

Similarly for B and C

b +1 c1 +3 1

b +1 c2 +2 2

b +1 c -2 3 3 Now we compare A and B, and we have nine combinations to examine

al = 4, a3 = -1, b1 = 1 bl 1; a2 0, 1;

al = 4, b2 = 1; a2 = 0, b2 = 1; a3 -1, b = I 2

a1 4, b = 1; 0, b3 = 1; a = -1, b = 1 3 a2 3 3 3 Six out of nine times B is better than A. A similar comparison shows 6/9 times C is better than B. So clearly C is preferable. Unless one com- pares C with A, where 5/9 times A is better. This is a circular game, like the chtldrens game of stone, scissors and paper. There is no optimum strategy.

I am aware of having evaded several difficult problems. Land use classification I believe is achievable. Similarly, granted flexible approach, the reduction of noxious emissions of all kinds can be achieved, within the limits of current technology. But I am not optimistic about broad, overall control of activities, such as might be hoped for by utilizing environmental impact statements. The interacting systems are just too complex. In times of prosperity it is literally not possible to take decisions which might reduce that prosperity. In times of high unemployment, decisions that result in putting men back to work will be made without regard to environmental effects.Currently, so many people seem to want to adopt an adversary stance, us against them. But we are all them, or, in the immortal words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Cooperation in attaining stated, achievable, simple goals is, I suspect the best we can expect. We should concentrate on the formulation of such goals, and in the meantime we should regard with suspicion those who tell us at intervals that uur doom is at hand.

1 References

1. Science 174, 692; 1971

2. Ibid.

3. Science 173, 233; 1971

133 136

4. "Resources and Man" NAS/NRC. p. 135, Freeman E. Co., San Francisca, 1968

5. "Era of Excess,"Harper Colophon, 1964

6. Science 174, 1101; 1972

7. Science 174, 1331; 1972

8. Science 174, 1280; 1971

9. Science 174, 1210; 1971

10. Brookhaven Symposium in Biology 22, 13: 1970

11. Brookhaven Symposium in Biology 22, 68: 1970

12. "Introduction to Mathematical Ecology," Wiley Intersciences, 1970

13. U. S. Geological Survey Circular, 645

14. Foreign Affairs 50, 325: 1972

15. J. Environ. Systems, 1,77: 1971

134 1.31/ 13g

Concluding Remarks

135 139

NEPA: BUCKLING DOWN

Robert B. Ditton Assistant Professor University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

It would be difficult to imagine a conference focus any more timely than NEPA and environmental impact analysis methods. Changing guidelines and court decisions are daily stimuli requiring immediate responses by those involved in the development or review of impact statements. Consider, for example, the ramifications of the December 29, 1971 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James E. Doyle in Milwaukee. He decreed that it is not the authority of agencies to decide whether an environmental impact statement must be filed under NEPA.Rather agencies must assemble statements for every project or else petition the court to determine if one is necessary.Many of you might suggest that Judge Doyle should have provided an "impact statement" with his decision. It all depends on how you view NEPA, its practicality, and its intent.

Development of environmental impact statements in compliance with Section 102 (2)(c) of NEPA can be viewed a number of ways. It can be viewed by agency officials as one more burden on already overburdened shoulders. It can be viewed as an intrusion on agency prerogatives. It can be regarded as a bottleneck to placate anti-development interests. any have come to view it as a new bureaucratic paper shuffle. Others take it seriously.

NEPA was hailed as a landmark public law in 1970 because, at least on paper, it placed environmental concerns on a par with technologic and economic considerations.As such, a new ingredient has been added to federal decision making that will hopefully yield more sensitive decisions. Recognition of the value of this new ingredient will not come overnight nor will its implementation come easy.

We have devoted much of our conference program to exploration of the environmental impact analysis state of the art. In addition to presentations on technical methodologies, representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Highway Administration spoke of "two years of labor and learning" basedon their practical experience with NEPA. Further, we have sought to refine our concept. of environmental impact to one that recognizes a greater number of aesthetic intangibles, that is more social scinle oriented and more relevantto an urbanized society.

As of November 30th, 1971, draft or final environmental impact statements on 2146 actions had been received by the Councilon lnviron- mental Quality. Recent discussions with Neal Orloff and Tom Winter in Washington reveal that these statements are literally arriving bythe boxful. 140

Of equal importance is the fact that many agencies carrying on activities which significantly affect the environment have not reported environmental impacts in the recent past. With two years of implementation experience and a more sharply honed definition of "significantly affecting the environment," compliments of the courts, more comprehensive compliance can now be expected, hopefully, utilizing background information and methods presented at this conference.

Counting and weighing impact statements must give way to qualita- tive concerns. Effectiveness cannot be demonstrated in terms of the number of statements processed and environmental impact or lack of it cannot be measured by the boxful or the pound.The inexact methodologies we have available need to be improved, modified and refined if the intent of NEPA is to be met. In the meantime, we all have a responsibility to improvise with present methodologies, involve an array of disciplines in the development of statements, and foster a philosophy that will place high priority on guarding against environmental deterioration throughout our decision making.

At this conference we have sought to better understand NEPA's policy framework and its role in a larger government bureaucracy as well as methodological tools. Many would have us focus only on methodologies as if this was the one and only solution to our oroblems. It would be naive to believe that even with the most sharpened methods, the problems would be noticeably reduced. You must still live within the often restrictive boundaries of agency concerns, restrictive budgets, archaic laws and often archaic missions. We also recognize the motivation difficulties presented for specialists charged with assessing environmental impacts within the political arena as described by John Steinhart. We, therefore, felt compelled to deal with the larger policy framework if environmental impact analysis and methods were to have meaning.

Implementation of NEPA will have considerable impact of its own; either in the development of similar legislation and apparatus throughout government or in the rejuvenation of existing laws and agency responsibilities. Following in the footsteps of numerous public laws, NEPA is slowly shaping legislation and agency thinking on state and local levels. Already four states in addition to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico have enacted laws directing state agencies to consider the environment in their actions. Environmental impact analysis procedures on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus are in anticipation of NEPA-like legislation in Wisconsin.

A contrasting view is that the prediction of environmental impacts before they occur can also be carried out without creating a plethora of new agencies, laws and institutions, but by sharpening the effectiveness of present agencies and institutions. In speaking of this point, British Minister of the Environment, Peter Walker, notes that he expects his government's agencies to make environmentally sound judgements without decree or without employing the environmental impact statement mechanism:

". . . I personally think the environmental impact statement, like a number of other decisions in the past, really makes a land fit for lawyers to live .1 in with no great impact upon the environment itself.

137 141114.2-

While the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 already guides Federal actions that may affect the environment, there are nevertheless a variety of institutional approaches open to state and local government for assessing their own environmental impacts.

Former Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall spoke of a resource ethic for tomorrow in The Quiet Crisis. He said:

"We can have abundance and an unspoiled environment if we are willing to pay the price.We must develop a land conscience that will inspire those daily acts of stewardship which will make America a more pleas- ant and more productive land."

"Only an ever-widening concept and higher ideal of conservation will enlist our finest impulses and move us to make the earth a better home2both for ourselves and for those as yet unborn.

Tomorrow is today, which is why we are here today. And today we are discussing the potentials as well as the imperfections of the environmental impact analysis state of the art. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and elsewhere have a responsibility for opti- mizing the potentials and correcting the imperfections. Universities and government agencies are encouraged to develop further conferences similar to this one but on a regional scale to arrive at new understanding of NEPA, its operationalization, as well as its rapidly changing legal and policy framework.

To implement current and updated methodologies, to improve them through experience, and to allow them to realistically guide your agency's development actions will require all the help and courage you can muster.

Footnotes

1. Sally Lindsay, "Conversation with Britain's Environmental Chief," Saturday Review (55) 1, 70.

2. Stewart L. Udall, The Quiet Crisis (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), pp 190-200.

LOU Appendices

1.39 145 APPENDIX A

Public Law 91-190 91st Congress, S. 1075 January 1, 1970

AN ACT 83 STAT. 852

To establish a national policy for the environment, to provide for the establishment of a Council on Environmental Quality, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House o6 Reoesenta- tive6 o6 the United States Amenica in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the "National Environmental National En- Policy Act of 1969." vironmental Policy Act of PURPOSE 1969.

SEC. 2. The purposes of this Act are:To declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation; and to establish a Council on Environmental Quality.

TITLE I

DECLARATION OF NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

SEC. 101. (a) The Congress, recognizing the pro- Policies and found impact of man's activity on the interrelations of goals. all components of the natural environment, particularly the profound influences of population growth, high-density urbanization, industrial expansion, resource exploitation, and new and expanding technological advances and recognizing further the'critical importance of restoring and maintaining environmental quality to the overall welfare and development of man, declaresthat it is the continuing policy of the Federal Government, in cooperation with State and local governments, and other concerned public and private organizations, to use all practicable means and measures, including financial and technical assistance, in a manner calculated to foster and promote the general welfare, to create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony, and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations of Americans. (b) In order to carry out the policy set forth in this Act, it is the continuing responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means, consistent with other essential considerations of national policy to improve and coordinate Federal plans, functions,

140 146

programs, and resources to the end that the Nation may--

(1) fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations; (2) assure for all Americans safe, healthful, productive, and esthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings; (3) attain the widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation, risk to health or safety, or other undesirable and unintended consequences; (4) preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage, and maintain, wherever possible,an environment which supports diversity and variety of individual choice; (5) achieve a balance between populationana resource use which will permit high standards of living and a wide sharing of life's amenities; and (6) enhance the quality of renewableresources and approach the maximum attainable recycling of depletable resources. (c) The Congress recognizes that each person should enjoy a healthful environment and that each person has a responsibility to contribute to the preservation and enhancement of the environment.

Administration. SEC. 102. The Congress authorizes and directs that, to the fullest extent possible: (1) the policies, regulations, and public laws of the United States shall be interpreted and administered in accordance with the policies set forth in this Act, and (2) all agencies of the Federal Government shall--

(A) utilize a systematic, interdisciplinary approach which will insure the integrated use of the natural and social sciences and the environmental design arts in planning and in decision- making which may have an impact on man's environment; (B) identify and develop methods and procedures, in consultation with the Council on Environmental Quality established by title II of this Act, which will insure that presently unquantified environmental amenities and values may be givenappro- priate consideration in decisionmaking along with economic and technical considerations; (C) include in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, a detailed

141 147

statement by the responsible official on--

(i) the environmental impact of thepro- posed action, (ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot he avoided should the proposal be implemented, (iii) alternatives to the proposed action, (iv) the relationship between local short- term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and enhancement of the long-term productivity, and Cv) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented.

Prior to making any detailed statement, therespon- sible Federal official shall consult with and obtain the comments of any Federal agency which has jurisdiction by !ay or special expertise with respect to any environmental impact involved. Copieb of such statement and the comments and Copies of state- views of the appropriate Federal, State, and ments, etc.; avail- local agencies, which are authorized to develop ability. and enforce environmental standards, shall be made available to the President, the Councilon Environmental Quality and to the public as provided by section 552 of title S. United States 81 Stat, S4. Code, and shall accompany the proposal through the existing agency review processes;

(D) study, develop, and describe appropriate alternatives to recommended courses of action in any proposal which involves unresolved conflicts concerning alternative uses of available resources; (E) recognize the worldwide and long-range . character of. environmental problems and, where consistent with the foreign policy of the United States, lend appropriate support to initiatives, resolutions, and programs designed to maximize international cooperation in anticipating and preventing a decline in the quality of mankind's world environment; (F) make available to States, counties, municipalities, institutions, and individuals, advice and information useful in restoring, maintaining, and enhancing the quality of the environment; (G) initiate and utilize ecological information in the planning and development of resource- oriented projects; and (H) assist the Council on Environmental Quality established by title II of this Act.

142 148

SEC. 103. All agencies of the Federal Govern- Review ment shall review their present statutory authority, administrative regulations, and current policies and procedures for the purpose of determining whether there are any deficiencies or inconsistencies therein which prohibit full compliance with the purposes and provisions of this Act and shall propose to the President not later than July 1, 1971, such measures as may be necessary to bring their authority and policies into conformity with the intent, purposes, and procedures set forth in this Act.

SEC. 104. Nothing in Section 102 or 103 shall in any way affect the specific statutory obligations of any Federal agency (1) to comply with criteria or standards of environmental quality, (2) to coordinate or consult with any other Federal or State agency, or (3) to act, or refrain from acting contingent upon the recommendations or certification of any other Federal or State agency.

SEC. 105. The policies and goals set forth in this Act are supplementary to those set forth in existing authorizations of Federal agencies.

TITLE II

COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

Report to SEC. 201. The President shall transmit to the Congress Congress annually beginning July 1, 1970, an Environ- mental Quality Report (hereinafter referred to as the "report") which shall set forth (1) the status and condition of the major natural, manmade, or altered environmental classes of the Nation, including, but not limited to, the air, the aquatic, including marine, esturine, and fresh water, and the terrestrial environment, including, but not limited to, the forest, dryland, wetland, range, urban, suburban, and rural environment; (2) current and foreseeable trends in the quality, management and utilization of such environ- ments and the effects of those trends on the social, economic, and other requirements of the Nation; (3) the adequacy of available natural resources for fulfilling human and economic requirements of the Nation in the light of expected population pressures; (4) a review of the programs and activities (including regulatory activities) of the Federal Government, the State and local governments, and nongovernmental entities or individuals, with particular reference to their effect on the environment and on the conservation, development and utilization of natural resources; and (5) a program for remedying the deficiencies of existing programs and activities, together with recommendations for legislation.

14'1 149

SEC. 202. There is created in the Executive Office Council on of the President a Council on Environmental Quality Environmental (hereinafter referred to as the "Council"). The Council Quality. shall be composed of three members who shall be appointed by the President to serve at his pleasure, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.The President shall designate one of the members of the Council to serve as Chairman. Each member shall be a person who, as a result of his training, experience, and attain- ments, is exceptionally well qualified to analyze and interpret environmental trends and information of all kinds: to appraise programs and activities of the Federal Government in the light of the policy set forth in title 1 of this Act; to be conscious of and responsive to the scientific, economic, social, esthetic, and cultural needs and interests of the Nation; and to formulate and recommend national policies to promote the improvement of the quality of the environment.

SEC. 203. The Council may employ such officers and employees as may be necessary to carry out its functions under this Act. In addition, the Council may employ and fix the compensation of such experts and consultants as may be necessary for the carrying out of its functions under this Act, in accordance with section 3109 of title 5, United States Code (but without regard to the last 80 Stat. 416. sentence thereof). Duties and functions. SEC. 204. It shall be the duty and function of the Council--

(1) to assist and advise the President in the preparation of the Environmental Quality Report required by section 201; (2) to gather timely and authoritative information concerning the conditions and trends in the quality of the environment both current and prospective, to analyze and interpret such information for the purpose of determining whether such conditions and trends are interfering, or are likely to interfere, with the achievement of the policy set forth in title I of this Act, and to compile and submit to the President studies relating to such conditions and trends; (3) to review and appraise the various programs and activities of the Federal Government in the light of the policy set forth in title I of this Act for the purpose of determining the extent to which such programs and activities are contributing to the achievement of such policy, and to make recommendations to the President with respect thereto; (4) to develop and recommend to the President national policies to foster and promote the improvement of environmental quality to meet the conservation,

141 150

social, economic, health, and other requirements and goals of the Nation; (5) to conduct investigations, studies, sur- veys, research, and analyses relating to ecological systems and environmental quality; (6) to document and define changes in the natural environment, including the plant and animal systems, and to accumulate necessary data and other information for a continuing analysis of these changes or trends and an interpretation of their underlying causes; (7) to report at least once each year to the President on the state and condition of the environment; and (8) to make and furnish such studies, reports thereon, and recommendations with respect to matters of policy and legislation as the President may request.

SEC. 205. In exercising its powers, functions, and duties under this Act, the Council shall--

(1) consult with the Citizens' Advisory Com- mittee on Environmental Quality established by 34 F. R. 8693. Executive Order numbered 11472, dated May 29, 1969, and with such representatives of science, industry, agriculture, labor conservation organizations, State and local governments and other groups, as it deems advisable; and (2) utilize, to the fullest extent possible, the services, facilities, and information (including statistical information) of public and private agencies and organizations, and individuals, in order that duplication of effort and expense may be avoided, thus assuring that the Council's activities will not unnecessarily overlap or conflict with similar activities authorized by law and performed by established agencies.

Tenure and SEC. 206. Members of the Council shall serve compensation. full time and the Chairman of the Council shall be compensated at the rate provided for Level II of the 80 Stat. 460, Executive Schedule Pay Rates (5 U.S.C. 5313). The 461. other members of the Council shall be compensated at the rate provided for Level IV or the Executive 81 Stat. 638. Schedule Pay Rates (5 U.S.C. 5315).

Appropriations. SEC. 207. There are authorized to be appro- priated to carry out the provisions of this Act not to exceed $300,000 for fiscal year 1970, $700,000 for fiscal year 1971, and $1,000,000 for each fiscal year thereafter. Approved January 1, 1970.

145 1510.2

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

HOUSE REPORTS: No. 91-378, 91-378, pt. 2, accompanying H. R. 12549 (Comm. on Merchant Marine & Fisheries) and 91-765 (Comm. of Lonference). SENATE REPORTNo. 91-296 (Comm. on Interior & Insular Affairs). CONGRESSIONALRECORD, Vol. 115 (1969). July 10: Considered and passed Senate. Sept. 23:Considered and passed House, amended, in lieu of H. R. 12549. Oct. 8: Senate disagreed to House amendments; agreed to conference. Dec. 20: Senate agreed to conference report. Dec. 22: House agreed to conference report.

146 APPENDIX 153

20 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EXPLAINING THE NEPA SECTION 102 ENVIRONMENT IMPACT STATEMENT PROCESS*

Q: 1. What is a "102 statement'?

A: It is a detailed analysis of environmental aspects of proposed action which all Federal Government agencies are required to prepare and use in their agency review processes before they take any "major actions" (including recommendations and reports on legislation) which "significantly affect the quality of the human environment."

Q: 2. Why is it called a "102 statement"?

A: Section 102, in particular 102 (2) (C), of the National Environ- mental Policy Act ("NEPA") (Public Law 91-190, 91st Congress, January 1, 1970, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 4332 (2) (C)) created the requirement for the statement, and set forth the procedure to be followed in its preparation and the topics it must discuss:

(i) The environmental impact of the proposed action (ii) any unavoidable adverse effects (iii) alternatives (iv) the relationship of short-term uses and long-term productivity (v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources.

The Council on Environmental Quality has issued Guidelineson how agencies are to meet this requirement (36 Federal Register 7724, April 23, 1971) and most agencies have setup procedures applying the requirement to their own programs.

Q: 3. Who prepares 102 statements?

A: The law says only that it shall be prepared by "the responsible official". Agencies are currently working to prepare finalpro- cedures for making their particular operations accordwith the Act, and each agency's procedures identify which officialmust issue 102 statements.

Q: 4. Do agencies of State Government have to prepare these statements?

A: Unless the State requires this under its own law, Statesprepare statements only when their actions are supported by Federalcon- tracts, grants, or permits, and the Federal agency procedureshave delegated initial preparation of statements to thestate level.

* From: "102 Monitor"Published by the Council on Environmental Quality. 722 Jackson Place, N.W., 20006.Volume 1, Number 10, November 1971.

147 154

An example is the Federal Highway Administration, which provides matching grants for many state highway construction programs. The draft statements here are generally prepared by the State Highway Departments; the Department of Transportation takes responsibility for the final statements.

Q: 5. Must industry prepare 102 statements?

A: Generally speaking, no.The exception comes when an industry action requires a Federal license or permit -- such as a Corps of Engineers dredging permit, a transmission line right-of-way across Federal land, or Federal Power Commission license for a dam.

When a Federal regulatory or permit action calls for a statement, the Federal agency will still prepare the environmental statement, but may require the private industry proposing the action to file a preliminary environmental report analyzing the environmental aspects of what it proposes to do.

Q: 6. What if two or more agencies are involved in the same project?

A: One is chosen to be the "lead" agency and made responsible for the environmental impact statement.

Q: 7. How large must a project be before it is considered a "major action" with "significant impact"?

A: Again, this varies from department to department, as each applies NEPA to its own activities and problems.The CEQ Guidelines (Section 5 (b)) indicate that "highly controversial" actions are to be covered, as well as decisions taken over a period of time which, though individually not major, have a "cumulatively significant impact."

To note some examples, the Corps of Engineers' proposed final procedures (Federal Register, June 11, 1971) call for statements not only on the Corps Water Resource Projects but also on "leasing of project lands for industrial uses, requests for overhead rightsof-

way, mineral extractions such as sand, gravel, rock, etc . . ."

The Federal Power Commission's proposed regulations (36 Federal Register 13040, July 13, 1971) place the cutoff line for hydroelectric projects at 2,000 horsepower; above that, regulation involves a major action, while below it does not.

Q: 8. When are statements prepared?

A: The Council's Guidelines indicate that they must be made "early enough in the agency review process before an action is taken in order to permit meaningful consideration of the environmental issues involved" (section 10 (b)). In addition, the "action- forcing" 90 day waiting period requirement (see Q 1117) means that the Federal Agency considering a project must anticipate a minimum r. ninety day wait from filing the draft statement to beginning action.

14S 155

Q: 9. How many 102's does the CEQ receive in a month? How many since enactment of NEPA?

A: The November 1971 Monitor listed 101 draft and 95 final statements, for a total of 196 of which over half related to highway construc tion. Since enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act on January 1, 1970, almost two thousand draft and 850 final statements have been catalogued, covering a total of 2040 actions (including legislative proposals and reports) subjected to environmental analysis under the Act.

Q: 10. What is the difference between a "draft" and a "final" statement?

A: The CEQ Guidelines require that each statement be prepared in two stages: first, the sponsoring agency prepares a draft statement using its own expertise and information. The draft is then reviewed and commented on by other agencies which have specialized expertise relating to the project. Finally, the sponsoring agency uses these comments to modify the project plans (if indicated) and to prepare a final statement.

Q: 11. Who is asked to comment?

A: The Guidelines contain an appendix which lists Federal agencies . with expertise in particular aspects of the environment which should be asked to comment. In addition, when State or local review is relevant, copies of the draft are either sent to the state, regional, and metropolitan clearinghouses set up by Circular #A-95 of the Office of Management and Budget or directly to State and local agencies authorized to develop and enforce environmental standards. The CEQ receives ten copies of every statement and may Fi .0 comment.

Q: 12. What role on meN,ers of the public have in the commenting process?

A: The agency preparing the draft statement is responsible for making it available to the public (under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. Section 552) -- see Q #18). Any individual or organiza tion may then comment on the draft; he may express support or opposition, suggest alternatives, or point out project effects that may have escaped the attention of its sponsors. These com ments may be in the form of a letter, a critique, or even, as done by some citizen's groups, a "counter-102" setting forth their views and analysis in as great a depth as the draft itself.

Q: 13. How soon mast comments be made?

A: Ordinarily agencies must allow at least thirty days for comments (fortyfive for EPA comments on projects with effects in the areas of EPA jurisdiction). Some have written longer periods into their procedures. The Guidelines suggest that requests for 15 day exten sions should be considered favorably. 156

Q: 14. How can people find out about comments?

A: The summary sheet attached to each draft statement lists theagen cies consulted; the final statement is made available with copies of all comments received. The sponsoring agency is responsible for making comments available on request (under the Freedom of Informa tion Act); such request should be directed either to the sponsoring agency's nearest regional office, or to its environmental liaison officer (listed in Appendix II of the Guidelines).

Q: 15. How can the public get copies of statements and comments on such statements?

A: All draft and final statements, unless classified are listed in the 102 Monitor; since May they have been given a NTIS (National Tech nical Information Service) order number, and since August,an ELR (Environmental Law Reporter) order number. (see p. 8 for informa tion on how to order the statements from NTIS or the Environmental Law Reporter). It is particularly important to a prompt response that the order number be sent to NTIS.

Copies of statements are also kept at the offices of theagency that prepared them, as well as being available to the public at the State and regional clearinghouses (see 0 011).

Representatives of conservation groups who feel that they will want to comment on many of an agency's statements should contact either the nearest regional office or the agency's environmental liaison official (see Q 014) with the request that their names be added to the mailing list for commentators.

16. Is there any other way to involve the public in project review?

A: Yes -- the public hearing. Some agencies (e.g., the Federal Highway Administration) are required to hold them as a matter of statute, while others are encouraged by Executive Order 11514 to hold them as a point of contact with public opinion. For nonregulatory hearings, the draft statement must be made available fifteen days in advance of the hearing.

Q: 17. That chance is there for the draft and final 102 statements to affect agency action?

A: CEQ's Guidelines Section 10 (b) provides that "to the maximum extent possible" no administrative action is to be taken within 90 days after the draft statement has been made available to the Council and the public, nor is it to be taken within thirty days of the final statement's availability (the time periods may overlap).In other words, an agency cannot start work until the public and the Executive have had at least 90 days to examine the environmental consequences of the plan -- and if the final follows the draft by more than 60 days, the review time is extended as well. 157

These waiting periods only apply to actions the agency can take itself -- not legislative proposals or reports -- and may be modified with the CEQ's consent when emergency circumstances, expense to the Government, or impaired program effectiveness make modification appropriate.

18. What is the CEQ's role in the 102 process?

A: As the agency supervising the whole Section 102 process, the Council must pay special attention to maintaining the "traffic rules" for the flow of reports, leaving most substantive comments to the particular "expert" agencies.

The Council also serves as advisor to the President on environmental questions. In this capacity the Council may comment on particularly important or controversial projects and suggest what courses of action might be followed.

19. What effect has the Section 102 process had?

A: Federal agencies have taken, modified, and avoided actions on the basis of the NEPA environmental analysis. For example, the Corps of Engineers refused to grant some dredge and fill permits in order to protect ecological and aesthetic values.The Corps also has suspended some water resource projects pending consideration of the environmental impacts. The Coast Guard has denied several bridge construction permits to avoid adverse environmental consequences. The Forest Service switched from clearcutting to selective cutting in a National Forest, the Department of Trans- portation reconsidered several proposedInterstate Highway routes, and the Department of Defense amended plans for munitions disposal.

(For a fuller discussion of this question see the CEQ's Second Annual Report, pp. 25-27 and Chapter V, "The Law and the Environment.")

Q: 20. What legal rights does the citizen have under NEPA?

A: Most courts have concluded that the NEPA "102" environmental statement procedure is court enforceable at the suit of interested citizens. The extent of the citizen's right to sue is still being defined by the courts, particularly since it is linked to broader questions of administrative law, such as scope of judicial review, "standing," sovereign immunity, etc. (see Chapter V "The Law and the Environment," of the Council's Second Annual Report or more detailed information). 158 APPENDIX C

SOURCES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENTS*

In order to receive more efficient and prompt service, requestors are urged to order draft and final impact statements from the Depart- ment of Commerce's National Technical Information Service (NTIS) rather than the preparing agency. Each statement will be assigned an order number that will appear in the 102 Monitor (at the end of the summary of each statement) and also in the NTIS semi-monthly Announcement Series No. 68, "Environmental Pollution and Control."(An annual sub- scription costs $5.00 and can be ordered from the NTIS, U. S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, Virginia 22151.)

Final statements will be available in microfiche as well as paper copy. A paper copy of any statement can be obtained by writing NTIS at the above address and enclosing $3.00 and the order number. A microfiche costs $0.95. (Paper copies of documents that are over 300 pages are $6.00.)

NTIS is also offering a special "package" in which the subscriber receives all statements in microfiche for $0.35 per statement.

Statements will still be available for public scrutiny in the document rooms of the various agencies. However, only limited copies will be available for distribution.

Yet another possible source of statements is from the Environmental Law Institute, 1346 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. To order a document, please indicate the Department, date, and ELR Order # (given at the end of each summary). The Institute charges $0.10 per page, and as you will note the number of pages is also given at the end of the summaries. Please enclose the correct amount of money with your order and mark the envelope to the attention to the "Document Service."

* From: "102 Monitor"Volume 1, Number 10, November 1971. 159 APPENDIX D

SOURCE FOR BACK ISSUES OF THE 102 MONITOR*

Because the supply of past issues of the 102 Monitor is not sufficient to meet all requests, a list is provided below indicating where the various issues of the 102 Monitor appeared in the Congressional Record. You may wish to order these Congressional Records from the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 ($.25 per copy).

Vol. 1, Nos. 1, 2 & 3

Congressional Record - April 28 (Extension of Remarks), Page E 3607

Vol. 1, No. 4

Congressional Record - May 27 (Extension of Remarks), Page E 5151

Vol. 1, No. 5

Congressional Record - June 16 (Extension of Remarks), Page E 6023

Vol. 1, No. 6

Congressional Record - July 28 (Extension of Remarks), Page E 8458

Vol. 1, No. 7

Congressional Record - Sept. 13 (Extension of Remarks), Page E 9483

Vol. 1. No. 8

Congressional Record - Sept. 24 (Extension of Remarks), Page E 10002

Vol. 1. No. 9

Congressional Record - Nov. 1 (Extension of Remarks), Page E 11596

* From: "102 Monitor"Volume 1, Number 10, November 1971.

153 APPENDIX E Summary of 102 Statements Filed with the CEQ Through 11/30/71 (By Agency) Total actions on 0 Agmy.tc yetactionsDraftfinal been 102's on102'sreceived which for have no andlegislationFinal actions 102's on beenwhich federal102received. final statements oractions draft forhave Agriculture,AtomicAppalachian Energy Department Regional Commission Commission of 4527 1 9024 70 135 51 81 Defense,Commerce, Department Department of of ArmyAir Force 613 532 11 45 Delaware River Basin Commission NavyArmy Corps of Engineers 149 36 265 904 414 1210 3 HEW,GeneralFederalEnvironmental Department ServicesPower CommissionProtection of Administration Agency 1614 0 19 15 3519 1 Interior,HUD,International Department Department ofBoundary of and Water 4710 3510 8220 5 National ScienceAeronautics Foundation and Space Admin. Commission--U. S. & Mexico 16 21 1064 22 12 Treasury,Transportation,TennesseeOffice of DepartmentValleyScience Department Authority and of Technology of 868 11 01 416 32 1284 13 4 U. *SeparateS. Water Resources4 (f) statements Council not incorporated in 102 statements received 1235 4 911 from DOT are0 not included. 2146 4 L..111e1WreR70....,,,ww. Summary of 102 Statements Filed with the CEQ Through 11/30/71 actionsDraftfinal statements onstatements which nofor have (By Project Type) on Finallegislation statements forfinalTotal federal oractions draft actions onstatements which Aircraft,AEC nuclear ships development 6 vehicles yet been filed .0 8 and actions 57 have been taken 15 5 DefenseBridgeBuildingsAirports permitssystems 1426 02 116 245 142 18 45 InternationalHousing,Forestry urban boundary problems, new communities 482 264 14 66 MiningMassLand transitacquisition, disposal 1112 53 24 131 1436 64 :171 NaturalMilitary gas installations 6 oil Drilling and exploration 3 35 68 PowerPesticides,Parks, wildlife herbicides refuges, recreationTransportation, facilities pipeline 79 1014 1723 TransmissionOtherNuclearHydroelectric 152418 6 16 614 40121622 rn SpaceRoadsRailroads programs Plus roads through parks 119702 60 273 20 21 975139 81 Waste disposal MunitionDetoxification disposal of toxic substances 24 31 5 VVVIimull Water SewageRadioactive facilities waste disposal wastes 21 051 217 MunicipalNavigationIrrigationBeach erosion, & industrial hurricane protection 3916 2 9620 9 133 2522 WatershedPermit (Refuseprotection Act, & dredgesupplyflood and control fill) 115 74 221 01 336 75 MiscellaneousWeatherResearch modification & Development 1235 1413 8 911 12 61 2146 261911 From: "102 Monitor, Volume 1, Number 11, December 1971. APPENDIX F

Environmental Impact Statements Federal Agency Contacts

Department of Agriculture Department of Housing and Urban Development Dr. T. C. Byerly Office of the Secretary Richard H. Brown Washington, D.C. 20250 Director, Environmental & (202) 388-7803 Land Use Planning Division Washington, D.C. Department of Defense (202) 755-6186 Department of Air Force Department of Interior Col. Cliff M. Whitehead Room 5E 425, Pentagon Office of Communications Washington, D.C. 20330 Room 7214 (202) OX 5-2889 Washington, D.C. 20240 (202) 343-6416 Department of Army Corps of Engineers National Aeronautics and Space Administration Francis X. Kelly Assistant for Conservation Ralph Cushman Liaison, Public Affairs Office Special Assistant, Office of Office, Chief of Engineers Administration 1000 Independence Ave., SW Washington, D.C. 20546 Washington, D.C. 20314 Tennessee Valley Authority Office of the Assistant Secretary Dr. Francis Gartrell Col. William Gardiner Director, Environmental Chief of Construction Division Research and Development Office, Deputy Chief of Staff 720 Edney Building for Logistics Chattanooga, Tennessee 37401 Washington, D.C. 20330 (202) OX 4-4380 Department of Transportation

Environmental Protection Agency Martin Convisser Director, Office of Program Mr. George Marienthal Co-ordination Acting Director of Environmental 400 7th Street, SW Impact Statements Office Washington, D.C. 20590 1750 K Street, N.W. (202) 462-4357 Room 440 Washington, D.C. 20460 U. S. Water Resources Council (202) 254-7420 Ohio River Basin Commission

General Services Administration Fred E. Mort Chairman, ORBC Rod Kreger 1427 4th and Walnut Building Deputy Administrator Cincinnati, Ohio45202 GSA-AD Washington, D.C. 20405 165

APPENDIX G

SELECTED REFERENCES

Environmental Quality. The First Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality.Washington, D.C., U. S. Government Printing Office. August, 1970.

Environmental Quality. The Second Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality.Washington, D.C., U. S. Government Printing Office. August, 1971. (This second report ircludes much data on the environment and some types of impacts. Chapter 5, "The Law and the Environment", may be of particular interest to some readers.)

Harvard University, Graduate School of Design. Three Approaches to Environmental Resource Analysis. Washington, D.C.: The Conserva- tion Foundation. 1967. (This booklet reports on three resource analysis techniques: that ofG. Angus Hills, University of Toronto; Philip H. Lewis Jr., University of Wisconsin; Ian L. McHarg, University of Pennsylvania. Of particular interest in landscape design and regional planning processes).

Leopold, Luna B.; Clark, Frank E.; Hanshaw, Bruce B.; and Balsley, James R. A Procedure for Evaluating Environmental Imilact, Geological Survey Circular 645.Washington, D.C.: U. S Geological Survey, 1971. (This procedure and accompanying matrix for identifying and evaluating environmental impacts is the most widely disseminated. It has been applied once in a draft EIS by the Bureau of Reclamation. The authors are anxious to receive comments from agencies and individuals.)

Neiman, Bernard J. Jr., and Allen H. Miller. Interstate 57: An Appli- cation of Computers to Highway Location Dynamics. Environmental Awareness Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. Undated.

Sorensen, Jcns C. A Framework for Identification and Control of Resource Degradation and Conflict in the Multiple Use of the Coastal Zone. Published Master's dissertation, Department of Landscape Architec- ture, University of California, Berkeley, 1971. (Includes four Matrices for identifying possible adverse impacts. These matrices were distributed to all conference participants and examined during the presentation and discussion.)

U. S. Council on Environmental Quality. "102 Monitor" (Each issue of the "102 Monitor" provides a summary of draft and final 102 (2) (C) statements filed with the Council on Environmental Quality and other information related to Council activities.As of November, 1971, the availability of 102 statements and comments is listed weekly in the Federal Register.)

1', 166

U. S. Federal Register. Council on Environmental Quality - Implementa- tion of National Environmental Policy Act - Notice of Opportunity for Public Comment on Procedures. lot. 36, No. 239, Part II, December 11, 1971. (Entire issue 6.0 Aed to agencies procedures for implementing NEPA and CEQ's guidelines. Procedures previously published are not included but are indexed to indicate where they can be located.)

U. S. Federal Register. Council on Environmental Quality - Statements on Proposed Federal Actions Affecting the Environment - Guidelines. Vol. 36, No. 79, Part II, April 22, 1971.

University of Georgia, Institute of Ecology. Optimum Pathway Matrix Analysis Approach to the Environmental Decisionmaking Process- Test case: Relative Impact of Proposed Highway Alternates, 1971. (Mimeographed) (A study of alternative routes for highway 1-75 north from Marietta, Georgia prepared for the State Highway Depart- ment.)

1c9 167 APPENDIX H

CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS

Environmental Impact Analysis Conference Green Bay, Wisconsin January 5-6, 1972

Anderson, Charles Burroughs, Tom U.S. Forest Service Project Assistant Route 2 Manor Road News and Publications Rhinelander, Wisconsin 54501 University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin 53706 Arendt, David University of WisconsinGreen Bay Besadny, C. D. Green Bay, Wisconsin54302 Director Bureau of Environmental Impact Armstrong, John Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources Director, Sea Grant Program Box 450 University of Michigan Madison, Wisconsin 53701 Ann Arbor, Michigan48104 Bouchard, Thomas Austin, Wilbur Assistant Professor University of WisconsinGreen Bay Department of Geography Green Bay, Wisconsin 54302 University of WisconsinEau Claire Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54701 Barton, Michael Deputy Forest Supervisor Brende, Herbert Ottawa National Forest Environmental Development Engineer U. S. Forest Service Wisconsin Division of Highways Ironwood, Michigan 49938 Madison, Wisconsin 53702

Beattie, Hugh Bruss, Lyle Superintendent Director of Facilities Planning Isle Royale National Park University of WisconsinGreen Bay National Park Service Green Bay, Wisconsin 54302 Houghton, Michigan49931 Bunde, Dennis Beatty, Marvin Research Assistant Director Environmental Awareness Center Environmental Resources Unit 8105 Steenblock Library University of Wisconsin Extension University of Wisconsin 215 N. Brooks Madison, Wisconsin 53706 Madison, Wisconsin 53715 Cavanaugh, John Beckerley, James Soil Conservation Service U. S. Atomic Energy Commission U. S. Department of Agriculture Division of Radiological 6 P. O. Box 4248 Environmental Protection Madison, Wisconsin 53711 Washington, D.C. 20545 Chandler, Robert Bernhagen, William Assistant to the Director Institute of Environmental Studies National Park Service University of Wisconsin 2510 Dempster Street, Room 214 437 Witte Hall Des Plaines, Illinois 60016 Madison, Wisconsin 53706

160 1.68

Conti, Enrico Faulkner, Clarence Asst. for Environmental Affairs U. S. Dept. of the Interior Atomic Energy Commission Fish & Wildlife Service Chicago Operations Office Bureau of Sport Fisheries & Wildlife 9800 S. Cass Avenue Federal Building, Ft. Snelling Argonne, Illinois 60439 Twin Cities, Minnesota 55111

Cook, Robert Fulk, T. A. Associate Professor Environmental Planner Environmental Control U. S. Forest Service University of Wisconsin 633 W. Wisconsin Avenue Green Bay, Wisconsin54302 Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53203

Cooper, Rollin Giambusso, Angelo Center for Recreation Resources U. S. Atomic nergv Commission University of Wisconsin Division of Radiological Madison, Wisconsin 53706 Environmental Protection Washington, D.C. 20545 Davidson, Norman Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Goodale, Thomas Box 40 Associate Professor Munising, Michigan 49B62 Leisure Sciences University of Wisconsin Davy, William Green Bay, Wisconsin 54302 U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Kewaunee Project Office Ham, Joseph Kewaunee, Wisconsin 54216 Forest Supervisor Ottawa National Forest Dickerson, Russ U. S. Forest Service University of Wisconsin Ironwood, Michigan49938 Green Bay, Wisconsin54302 Haubert, John Ditton, Robert Department of the Interior Assistant Professor Bureau of Outdoor Recreation Leisure Sciences 3853 Research Park Drive University of Wisconsin Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104 Green Bay, Wisconsin 54302 Hess, Robert Dmoch, Thomas Environmental Quality Section Department of the Interior Research and Development Division Bureau of Outdoor Recreation Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources 3853 Research Park Drive 7th Floor Mason Building Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104 Lansing, Michigan48926

Dunn, Ben Holt, William Tennessee Valley Authority Assistant Chief 49 Evans Building Marine Environmental Coordination Knoxville, Tennessee 37662 Branch U. S. Coast Guard Ellison, Hank 400 Seventh St., SW Wisconsin Division of Highways Washington, D.C.20590 District 03 1125 N. Military Avenue Green Bay, Wisconsin54303 161 Huddleston, herb Kuehn, Jerome Assistant Professor Departuent of Natural Resources Ecosystems Analysis 555 Wabasha St. University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin 53704 Green Bay, Wisconsin 54302 Linaholm, Curt Johnson, ".Ward Soii Conservation Service Environoa lcal Protection Division U. D. Department of Agriculture Office, .ef of Naval Operations P. O. Box 4248 Room 4B4;0 Pentagon Madison, Wisconsin 53711 Washington, D.C. 20350 Lang, Vernon Johnson. Per U. S. Army Corpsof Engineers Assistant Professor 1594 Marion St.,Ar'. 202 Urban Analysis; St. PoLl, Minnei 55117 Univmrgity of Wismo..to Green jay, Wisconsin 54302 'Lawyer, Donald Assistant Chief Jowett, David Fhrironnental ResourceS Branch AssotAate Professor 1. S. krmy Corps of Engineers Ecosystems Analyst' VaJhington, D.C. 20314 University of Wisconsin Green Bay, Wisconsin 543:;.' Luedtkn, John UIR-ISD Kelly, L.K. Un2v(r..1,,* of Wisconsin L .s.ro.snt to 1.egional rlrester 1324 . Dayton St. i. S. Forest Service Madison, Wisconsin 53706 533 W. Wtsconsin Avenue Mi tutee_ Wiscroein 53203 Malone, John General Services Administration Kessler, John 219 S. Dearborn St. Assistant District Engineer Chicago, Illino:s 60604 Federal Highway Administration 4502 Vernon Blvd. lann, Wayne Madison, Wisconsin 53705 Forest Supervisor Chequamegon Oational Forest Knox, Ben U. S. Forest ervice Missouri State Park Board Park Falls, Wisconsin 54552 1204 Jefferson Bldg. Jefferson City, Missouri 65101 Mertens, Clem Wisconsin Division of H)ghways Kolka, Henry District 83 Upper Great Lakes Environmental 1125 North Military Avenue Impact Council Green Bay, Wisconsin 543'.$3 University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54701 Mundelius, Robert U. S. Army Corps of Eagineeva Krauskopf, Thomas Kewaunee Project Office Research Assistant Kewaunee, Wisconsin 542liN Environmental Awareness Center 8105 Steenbock Library University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin 53706

1.6 170

Nelson, Ken Sager, Paul Wisconsin Division of Highways Associate Professor District 113 Ecosystems Analysis 1125 N. Military Avenue University of Wisconsin Green Bay, Wisconsin 54303 Green Bay, Wisconsin54302

Nichols, Roland Slifer, Gordon Chairman Impact Coordinator Department of Geography West Central District Hdqrs. University of WisconsinEau Claire Wis. Dept. of Natural Resources Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54701 1300 W. Clairemont Ave. Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54701 Orloff, Neil Assistant Director Smith, Stewart Environmental Protection Agency Attorney Office of Federal Activities Denissen, Kranzush, Stodola & Room 440 Mahoney 1750 K St., NW 211 S. Monroe Washington, D.C. 20460 Green Bay, Wisconsin54301

Peterson, Michael Sorenson, Jens C. Planning Officer Post Graduate Researcher Arizona Outdoor Recreation Institute of Urban & Regional Coordinating Commission Development 2222 West Greenway Road University of CaliforniaBerkeley Phoenix, Arizona85023 1506 Oxford Street Berkeley, California 94709 Quigley, Jack Department of Engineering Steinhart, John University Extension Associate Director 432 N. Lake St. Center for Marine Studies Madison, Wisconsin 53706 University of Wisconsin 1225 W. Dayton St. Raduenz, Les Madison, Wisconsin53706 Landscape Architect University of Wisconsin Steinhauer, John Green Bay, Wisconsin 54302 Wisconsin Division of Highways District 43 Robkin, Eugene 1125 N. Military Avenue Assistant Professor Green Bay, Wisconsin54303 Ecosystems Analysis University of Wisconsin Stephenson, David Green Bay, Wisconsin 54302 Chairman Water Resources Management Program Rogers, Robert 72 Science Hall National Park Service University of Wisconsin Box 27 Madison, Wisconsin53706 Houghton, Michigan 49931 Striegl, Albert Ruedisili, Lon Civil Engineer Dept. of Geology & Geophysics 108 W. Wells St. Science Hall Room 352 University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Wisconsin53203 Madison, Wisconsin 53705

163 171

Stuiber, David Winter, Thomas Sea Grant Program Council on Environmental Quality University of Wisconsin 722 Jackson Place, NW Lowell Hall Washington, D.C. 20006 Madison, Wisconsin53706 Wood, Frances Troutt, Al Information Services Division Forest Supervisor University of Wisconsin Hiawatha National Forest 1535 University Avenue U. S. Forest Service Madison, Wisconsin 53706 Escanaba, Michigan 49829

Van Demark, Peter Institute for Environmental Studies University of Wisconsin 437 Witte Hall Madison, Wisconsin 53706

Wagener, William University of Wisconsin Green Bay, Wisconsin 54302

Warner, Maurice Institute for Environmental Studies University of Wisconsin 215 N. Brooks St. Madison, Wisconsin 53706

Weimer, Linda Publications Editor Sea Grant Program University of Wisconsin 1225 W. Dayton St. Madison, Wisconsin 53706

Weidner, Edward W. Chancellor University of WisconsinGreen Bay Green Bay, Wisconsin 54302

Whalen, James State Division of Highways Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation 4802 Sheboygan Avenue Madison, Wisconsin ._;02

Williams, Gary Environmental Impact Statement Coordinator Environmental Protection Agency 1 No. Wacker Drive Chicago, Illinois60606

500 75 A I 81000-45-0050511181000-45-0 015247

164 The American businessman is generous to a fault, but one thing he does demand of all teachers and lecturers and journalists: if we are going to pay them our good money, they've got to help us by selling efficiency and whooping it up for national prosperity! And when it comes to these blab-mouths, fault-finding, pessimistic, cynical University teachers, let me tell you that during this golden coming year it's just as much our duty to bring influence to have those cusses fired as it is to scll all the real estate and gather in all the good shekels we can. --George Babbit (Sinclair Lewis)

The economic and political forces producing environmental deterioration are deeply entrenched and are likely to yield only to concerted and persistent public pressures to force public policy in the direction of protecting and enhancing the ecological systems that sustain life on this planet. The overwhelming need is to arrange an overdue marriage between economics and ecology; to bring the corporate system to realize that the earth is not only a vast storehouse of natural wealth to be drawn upon freely for our material well-being but is also our abode, the place we live and bring up our children and seek psychic sustenance. --Richard Cooley, Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith

Greatness is all right on the great plains; it is wholly inappropriate to a tiny fragile sphere... I take heart in ... the realization that national greatness is too expensive and that the people of a modest nation have a much better time, or at least a better chance in the long run of a better time. --Kenneth Bou Id ing

This requirement (of NEPA) is not intended to be a mere formality. Nor is it intended to receive mere lip service. It demands no less than a revolution in the way we approach problems and make decisions. -Russell Train

There is no British equivalent to your environmental impact statement, nor do I intend to have one. I personally think it is the duty of any government department to pursue high quality decisions in terms of the environment and they should be severely, publicly chastised if they don't. And I personally think the environmental impact statement, like a number of other decisions in the past, really makes a land fit for lawyers to live in with no great impact upon the environment itself. -Peter Walker

1, I